BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

December 31, 2004

Stingy this!

: Sitting in the MSNBC newsroom, I saw a bulletin come across saying that the U.S. government had just pledged $350 million. This is turning into a worldwide Israel Bonds dinner: a competition to top this! And that is a wonderful thing. bt pdf converter professional

MSNBC links

: Here are links I plan to use on MSNBC on Friday:bt pdf converter professional

EYEWITNESS BLOGGERSbt pdf converter professional

: Evelyn Rodriguez posted very personal and heartfelt moments from Phuket at Crossroads Dispatches. A commenter now tells me she just arrived back home. She tells of sitting next to people whose lives are thrown apart: a boy who has lost his family, a man who lost his wife, another man who found his wife after their children back home told the father he'd just seen the mother on TV looking for him. bt pdf converter professional

: Mark is another blogger who just arrived home. He found that he and his girlfriend made news as her father told the Scotsman he was praying for her safety. They are safe. bt pdf converter professional

: Rick Von Feldt writes an amazing blog about everything he saw in Phuket. bt pdf converter professional

: Fred blogs from Sri Lanka at Extra, Extra. bt pdf converter professional

: From ChiensSansFrontiers, one of the more remarkable blogs:

The first thing I saw in Mullaitive town was a board hanging outside a battered building. I aksed our guide what the board said. He said says Senthalil Children's Home.bt pdf converter professional

The Home was home to 150 war orphans. They had lost both their parents to the war or had been abandoned or separated from their parents during the fighting. When the Government and the LTTE signed the ceasefire agreement 3 years ago it looked like at least some of these children were going to get a good deal in terms of their future.bt pdf converter professional

Now only 5 of them are alive.bt pdf converter professional

A wroung iron bed that was wrapped around a mango tree was for me the most telling thing about the force of the wave. I can't even imagine the force required to bend something like that. It looked like a straw wrapped around a bottle of coke. I tried to bend it back. I couldn't even move it.

: Stuart Lock writes about his honeymoon at the disaster.bt pdf converter professional

: Scott Raderstof gives us an incredible moment-by-moment recollection of how he and his family survived the wave. bt pdf converter professional

: Good roundup of eyewitness blogger quotes in the Guardian (some reduntant). bt pdf converter professional


NEWS BLOGGERSbt pdf converter professional

: Blogger and journalist Kevin Sites has left Iraq to cover the tragedy in Thailand; he is blogging it here. bt pdf converter professional

: Many good articles on the impact of this -- on, say, fishing -- at WorldChanging.org. bt pdf converter professional

: JavaJive writes about media coverage, local and international, and wonders why Thailand is getting more attention (so far) than Sri Lanka. bt pdf converter professional

: Insignificant Views says the Sri Lankan prime minister and delegation met with protests while the PM's office made no mention of it:

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksha and leaders of the Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna visited Jaffna Thursday amidst strong protests by refugees from the Tsunami destroyed coastal villages of the peninsula. Jeering refugees, demanding relief from Colombo, got into a tussle with the PM’s delegation at the Puloly American Mission School near Pt. Pedro. Earlier, the PM and his entourage were turned back by refugees in Valvettithurai protesting against Colombo for not sending relief or medicine to them since the Tsunami devastated their villages four days ago.bt pdf converter professional

Meanwhile a press release by the Sri Lankan government Thursday states: “Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse travelled to Jaffna today (30 December) and met many people who have survived the tidal waves. The purpose of his visit was to formalise the distribution of essential the distribution of essential items in Jaffna”.

Meanwhile, a Sri Lankan online paper says the protesters were terrorists acting as locals. bt pdf converter professional

: Wikipedia has a new and comprehensive entry on the earthquake and its aftermath. bt pdf converter professional


HELPbt pdf converter professional

: The ever-more-amazing SEA-EAT blog has no end of helpful suggestions. The latest: Where to donate your airline miles to charities helping in South Asia.bt pdf converter professional

: The Amazon gift page is up to $6 million tonight. The Red Cross reports that as of noon Thursday, the total from Americans was $18 million. bt pdf converter professional

More figures about the generosity of people around the world here. bt pdf converter professional

The Times of London says Britons gave 20 million pounds in 24 hours. bt pdf converter professional

: Here is the Red Cross Family Links page where people are trying to find each other. Here's a Phuket forum where people are posting notices. They're doing likewise at travel site Lonely Planet. bt pdf converter professional

: The Times of London gives us a chart showing what nations of the world have pledged to disaster relief. bt pdf converter professional

: Apple, like Amazon, hands over its home page to raising funds for relief. Microsoft does. Walmart does not. What other companies are following suit?bt pdf converter professional


VIDEO AND PHOTOSbt pdf converter professional

: Video bittorrents here. More mirrors here. bt pdf converter professional

: Punditguy got hit with a #1,000 bandwidth bill for showing the videos. Help if you can. bt pdf converter professional

: A comprehensive list of videos and photos. bt pdf converter professional

: Flickr photos under the tags tsunami, earthquake, Thailand, Phuket, disaster.bt pdf converter professional


SMSbt pdf converter professional

: SMS messages at ChiensSansFrontiers:

: We can pray later. Keep the food, water, clothes and medicine going. SAVE LIVES NOW!PRAY LATER! Pass this on. Message phones, word of mouth, any way.bt pdf converter professional

: All those who can help SHOULD help. All of us working to provide aid let's not waste time at religious ceremonies tomorrow. Praying's not going to help anyone right now. Let it not disrupt our work. EVERY MOMENT COUNTS! Saving lives IS god's work. We can pray later! Keep the food, water, clothes, and medic *SOME TEXT MISSING*bt pdf converter professional

: The Holy Family Convent, children's home and school are completely destroyed. Debris covers the entire compound and the stench of rotting flesh is everywhere. There are obviously bodies under the rubble. There's no one to remove them. Mother Superior Ambrosine covers her nose as she tries to salvage what she can. She hasn't slept in 3 days.]bt pdf converter professional

: Mullaitivu: The central college, about a km away from the coast is almost completely gone. Only 2 buildings remain. Children were home because of the holidays, but out of the 1100 students, over 400 are dead says principal Antony Jeganathan. His house is between the school and the beach and he survived by hanging onto a tree as he was being swept away


MORE...bt pdf converter professional

: I'm seeing stories from around the world saying in one way or another that having a big New Year's party would be poor form so soon after this tragedy. A story from London here. bt pdf converter professional

The Jakarta Post reports that New Year's parties are turning into charity events. bt pdf converter professional

: The founder of Lonely Planet says tourists should continue go to go these nations. bt pdf converter professional

This report says tourists are doing just that. bt pdf converter professional

And here are pictures from the German paper Bild showing tourists sunning themselves amidst the debris in Thailand. UPDATE: A commenter corrects me; I mistook an earlier story at Bild as connected to these photos; they are not from after the wave. Thanks for the correction. bt pdf converter professional

: Thailand's The Nation reports that Thai officials are implanting chips in the bodies of the dead to make identification easier. bt pdf converter professional

: Thailand's the Nation joins The New York Times in editorializing against and excoriating America for its "meager" response. bt pdf converter professional

: An Indonesian paper reports problems with disease and anger over the lack of food. bt pdf converter professional

: And the crackpots come out of the woodwork: Astrologists say it's the end o' the world: "Top astrologers in the country are hinting that the tsunami strike might indeed be a step towards Nostradamus' prediction - End of the world in 2010."bt pdf converter professional


LATER....bt pdf converter professional

: From MSNBC, I'll add links as I can, more randomly....bt pdf converter professional

: There are local sites popping up to serve local audiences. The web is, after all, local at heart. See Waves of Hope, One Thailand, and a Penang site. bt pdf converter professional

: JerseyEric says Jeb Bush is starting his 2008 presidential campaign in south Asia. bt pdf converter professional

: Evelyn Rodriguez is interviewed in the Mercury News. She needs someone near San Jose to help her set up a wireless router so she can keep her tsunami-injured leg elevated. Volunteers?bt pdf converter professional

: Walmart update: They now have up a link to the Red Cross and good for them. MSNBC asked me a question opening the door to criticize Walmart and I didn't; it's a holiday week and it takes time for people to get these sorts of things to happen. Good on all those who do. bt pdf converter professional

That's Wikipedia, not Ickypedia

: I've gotten lots of email from folks trying to figure out the address of Wikipedia after I plugged it on MSNBC and clearly said a confusing word unclearly. These poor folks are all looking for an Ickypedia. Sorry, folks. That's Wikipedia.org.bt pdf converter professional

December 30, 2004

Up and down

: If you've had trouble getting to the site tonight, it's good news (insert punchline here). Hosting Matters is switching me to a new server and I'm glad for it. bt pdf converter professional

Tsunami links

: I'm going to be on MSNBC at regular intervals throughout the day tomorrow giving continuing reports on weblogs' and the web's response to the tsunami tragedy. Will Femia was doing that today. bt pdf converter professional

Please leave new links in the comments below -- any new stories of survivors, new resources for help, new and compelling responses to the tragedy, new photos and videos....bt pdf converter professional

Tsunami: the political angle

: Of course, it took no time at all for media to find the celebrity angle to the tsunami tragedy (see the pathetic NY Daily News cover on how the tsunami affected a model). bt pdf converter professional

But it took three days for the pundits to find the political angle of the story, criticizing Bush for taking three days to speak out on the tragedy from his vacation. The NY Times argues today that the reason for Bush to take action is to make friends with Sri Lankan Muslims. Matt Lauer parrotted that on Today this morning.bt pdf converter professional

Isn't helping people the reason to take action?bt pdf converter professional

Getaloadathis

: The Pacific News Services proposes an American tsunami surtax.bt pdf converter professional

: Speaking of dumb ideas, Sen. Patrick Leahy proposes redirecting money earmarked for Iraqi rebuilding to South Asian rebuilding. It's as if he is admitting that he does not care about the Iraqi people. bt pdf converter professional

Connected charity

: Witness the phenomenal response to Amazon's call for tsunami charity -- $3.5 million at midnight -- the Washington Post notes a fundamental shift in how charity works, thanks to online.

Like never before, people are turning to the Internet to donate money, the latest step in a revolution that has altered everything from shopping to presidential campaigns.bt pdf converter professional

"This is like 1951, when television really took off,'' Paul Saffo, director of the Silicon Valley-based Institute for the Future, said yesterday. "We are in the middle of a fundamental shift from mass media to the personal media of computers and the Internet, and charitable giving is a logical progression.''bt pdf converter professional

At Amazon.com alone, more than 53,000 people had donated more than $3 million by yesterday evening after the company made an urgent appeal on its home page. Catholic Relief Services was so overwhelmed with Web traffic that its site crashed. Online donations to the Red Cross outstripped traditional phone banks by more than 2 to 1....bt pdf converter professional

Much of that giving came from people sitting at their computers. That has happened before, primarily after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But relief officials said the scale of online giving has grown dramatically since then....bt pdf converter professional

"It definitely came as a groundswell from our employees,'' said Amazon.com spokesman Craig Berman. "As soon as it went up, we started seeing donations kick in. It was virtually instantaneous."bt pdf converter professional

The only other time Amazon.com made a similar posting was after Sept. 11, when it raised more than $6.8 million.

bt pdf converter professional
December 29, 2004

The toll

: The toll rises to 82,000 so far. bt pdf converter professional

: More than 5,000 Australians are still missing. UPDATE: A commenter says I'm wrong and it's 5,000 foreigners. I can't find the original story (and neglected to link to it late last night, messing up in every way). I stand corrected. bt pdf converter professional

: Here is a frightening story of a mother who had to choose one child to hold and one to let go. I will not make you suffer suspense: The child she let go survived and all escaped. bt pdf converter professional

A survivor blogs

: Evelyn Rodriguez -- a blogger and kindred spirit regarding citizens' media and marketing -- survived the tsunami in Phuket and she blogs about it as she gets to Bangkok and out of Thailand. I won't quote. Just go read. bt pdf converter professional

: The Guardian quotes from more survivor blogs. bt pdf converter professional

Who's stingy?

: The NY Times headline this morning says: "Irate Over 'Stingy' Remark, U.S. Adds $20 Million to Disaster Aid.'
Now that makes a direct cause-and-effect relationship; the headline says we added $20 million because of the U.N. "stingy" crack.bt pdf converter professional

The story does not back that up. I don't believe the facts back that up. bt pdf converter professional

: Somebody tell me when France decides to add to its $170,000. [That's in Australian dollars, I'm now told. The amount in U.S. dollars: $135,000.]bt pdf converter professional

: Donations to Amazon's relief fund passed $1 million before 7 this morning. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: Bush responds to the "stingy" crack. He says it was misguided and misinformed. He said that in 2004, the U.S. provided $2.4 billion in government relief -- not including private relief -- and that was 40 percent of worldwise aid. "We're a very generous and kind-hearted nation," he said. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: The Washington Times says it went over the transcript of the first Egeland briefing:

Despite his claim of being "misinterpreted," a review of the transcript of Mr. Egeland's initial press briefing confirms that he asked reporters at the United Nations why Western countries are "so stingy" and specifically cited the United States as an example of a country whose citizens want to pay more taxes so that foreign aid can be increased.
"An unprecedented disaster like this one should lead to unprecedented generosity," Mr. Egeland said in his Monday briefing.
Mr. Egeland complained that the United States gives only 0.14 percent of its gross domestic product to foreign development aid, compared with 0.92 percent given by his native Norway. In this category, Norway ranks first and the United States ranks last on a list of 22 industrialized nations compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
"The foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income," Mr. Egeland said on Monday. "I think that is stingy really. I don't think that is very generous."
He pointed out that only Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as the Netherlands and Luxembourg, give at least 0.7 percent of their gross national income, a level suggested by the United Nations 25 years ago.
Mr. Egeland — a former journalist, deputy foreign minister of Norway and head of that nation's Amnesty International chapter — did not mention that the U.S. government gave $15.8 billion, more than any other nation, to development aid last year, compared to $2 billion by Norway.
The U.S. figure does not include massive infusions of cash to Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor does it include the category of food aid, where the United States is the largest donor in the world, or charitable contributions by private American individuals, churches and other organizations.
I have not been able to find that transcript on the UN site.bt pdf converter professional

: AMAZON UPDATE: Now up to $2.5 million about 24 hours after going up. bt pdf converter professional

A wave of destruction and death

: We try to make sense of what we do not know by relating it to what we know. So pardon me for making an obvious connection, obvious for me. But watching the videos of the tsunami coming onshore reminded me of too much of escaping the wall of destruction and death that came as the first of the towers collapsed on September 11th. bt pdf converter professional

Same beautiful, cloudless day. Same shock. Same speed, running faster than any man could run. Same power. Same sound. Same deadly debris carried along by its force. Same images of the helpless at their last moments. Same color of gray in its wake. bt pdf converter professional

Of course, one was caused by evil man, the other by uncaring nature. One cost thousands of innocent lives, the other many thousands more. bt pdf converter professional

But I think I understand the emotions of those who shot these videos and were there and were lucky enough to live. bt pdf converter professional

December 28, 2004

Tsunami notes

: Among the casualties: 1,700 people on one train, qualifying this as the worst rail disaster ever amidst what may become the worst natural disaster ever.bt pdf converter professional

: On NPR tonight, I heard a satellite expert say that most people would have been safe if only they'd walked one mile inland or gotten to higher ground (on videos, we've seen people on higher floors safe). There is no formal warning system but once the earthquake hit and once the nearby islands were hit, it's hard to believe that media could not have been alerted. Radio DJs panicking the way American weathermen panic at one inch of snow could have saved countless lives. bt pdf converter professional

: See the first before-and-after satellite images. bt pdf converter professional

: The BBC has started one of its logs of quick reports from correspondents around the globe. bt pdf converter professional

: Among the victims are those tied to the famous. Sir Richard Attenborough lost three family members, including his granddaughter. An Australian rugby star and his bride were lost on their honeymoon. A model lost her boyfriend (in a story painfully overplayed in the New York Daily News). bt pdf converter professional

: The Times of India lists entire tribes that may have been made extinct by the wave. bt pdf converter professional

: The Guardian tells the story of the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog (but without a link or address). bt pdf converter professional

: LATER: Glenn Reynolds writes about the internet and disasters.

The Internet accounts have given the disaster an immediacy and a personal dimension that traditional news accounts lack, and the self-organizing character of the blogosphere has allowed for rapid response as people who want to help have been put together with ways to help.bt pdf converter professional

That won't replace traditional efforts, of course: Despite being criticized as "stingy"
by Jan Egeland, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, the United States has sent an aircraft carrier and a Navy expeditionary group that was supposed to go on holiday leave to help with the recovery effort. It'll be a long time before the Internet crowd can dispatch resources like that.bt pdf converter professional

But nonetheless, a lot of human capital has been brought to bear on this problem in very short order, through voluntary cooperation.

bt pdf converter professional

The new network beats the old network

: I'm watching CNN right now and Anderson Cooper made a big deal of showing video of the tsunami "just in." Except I saw that video online this morning and linked to it then. bt pdf converter professional

Whether it comes to gathering news -- witness this video -- or distributing news -- witness the 6-10 times more people who saw Jon Stewart online than on CNN -- the new, distributed citizens' network sometimes beats the old, centralized corporate network. bt pdf converter professional

A new Iraqi blogger

: See Ali, liberal Iraqi blogger. bt pdf converter professional

The reviews are in

: Chuck Olsen's Blogumentary gets reviewed (favorably) in Mother Jones. bt pdf converter professional

Stingy like a frog

: At 5 p.m., Glenn Reynolds reported that Amazon had raised 112,000 for tsunami relief. Less than three hours later, the total is over $360,000 -- which beats the amount the French were reported to have pledged to tsunami relief this afternoon (as a UN official called America's first offer -- of many, no doubt -- of $35 million as "stingy"). bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: Five hours later, the total is over $585,000 at Amazon. bt pdf converter professional

Shooting lutefisk in a barrel

: In The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell reviews a book by Jared Diamond swallowing the assumption that ancient Norske had fishphobia but then Matthew Yglesias does 20 minutes of Googlechecking (previously known as fact-checking). bt pdf converter professional

: Fritz Schranck fishes yet deeper. bt pdf converter professional

Numbers too big to bear

: The number keeps growing bigger and more incomprehensible. They always do. The latest says 59,000 died in the tsunami. bt pdf converter professional

For perspective, this is rising almost to the number of all people killed in natural disasters last year, which itself was multiples over the totals in years before:

According to an annual survey by the German reinsurance giant Munich Re, 75,000 people were killed in natural disasters last year - up from 11,000 in 2002 and 25,000 in 2001. Most devastating were the Bam earthquake (40,000 dead, 30,000 injured) and heatwaves in Europe that claimed more than 20,000 lives. Economic losses were put at $US65 billion, up $10 billion on the previous year.
: UPDATE: An Italian official says the toll could reach 100,000.bt pdf converter professional

Socialized medicine indeed

: In posts below on godless Britain, some frustrated folks are trying to put up comments using the word "socialism." They are stopped in their tracks and they think there's some vast conspiracy (they can't decide whether it's of the left or the right) stopping them. But of course, it's not a PC cop. It's a spam cop that guards the door. MT Blacklist prevents the spammer evildoers from posting comments linking to their dubious business endeavors. And so what's wrong with socialism? Well, at its heart, as you can see, socialism is all about erectile dysfunction. The opiate of the masses, indeed. bt pdf converter professional

Bloggers tortured in Iran, says ex-VP

: Iranian blogger Parthisan left a comment below urging us to read his translation of a post by Mohammed Ali Abtahi, the former VP of Iran -- renowned for blogging himself -- reporting on the imprisonment and torture of bloggers in Iran. It is his report on a committee meeting with imprisoned bloggers, called for by the president of Iran. An excerpt:

1- Physical torture, punches and kicks: "he banged my head to the bench that made my recently-operated nose bleed, and later I found out that they broke my nose"; "they punched us"; "we were alone in single cells for months"; and things of this kind...bt pdf converter professional

2- The classical questions about sexual relationships [to create moral scandals]: "Write down the names of your boy/girl friends"; "tell us about your illegal [= out of marriage] sexual relationships"; "what kind of relationship have that girl/guy had with you?"; "how many times have you been raped, or have you raped?"; and worst of all, they gave the names of 6 reformist activist to one of the girls asking her to confess in writing that she had had illegal sexual relationship with them. And when the girl refused, they brought in a former prisoner (who had turned to their side under torture) who told the girl face to face that he had had sexual relationship with her!bt pdf converter professional

3- The interrogations were managed by a formerly arrested blogger. A few other bloggers who had [given up and] repented before were under less pressure, and were in a way helping the interrogators who had lack of technical knowledge on the subject [of internet and blogs]. This proves that weak people cannot be trusted in politics. However, we understand the situation they're in and can't really blame them for what they've done.

And more....bt pdf converter professional

I first discovered the amazing Iranian blogosphere when the government arrested fellow blogger Sina Motallebi. I blogged that. Others blogged that. Major media picked up the story. Motallebi got out of jail and then out of Iran and he has credited the attention his plight got from bloggers. bt pdf converter professional

If what we read here is true, then it is incumbent of us to bring attention to this abuse who are doing nothing more than we are doing: excercising our right to free speech. This is citizens' media and these are our fellow citizens. bt pdf converter professional

Spread the word. bt pdf converter professional

A world of witnesses, a world of reporters

: Following up on yesterday's post about finding photos and video and the tsunami, Brian TVNewser Stelter sends this good quote from David Carr's NY Times story:

Bob Calo, an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said that there had been something of a reversal in the news-gathering process. "If you think back, news gatherers would get the story and then commission a photographer to go and get the pictures," he said. "Now we have flipped it around to where reporters are chasing the pictures, trying to create some context for what viewers are seeing."
We are all reporters. I've written often that I wonder what would have been different if I'd had a camera or cameraphone with me at the World Trade Center on 9/11: An event viewed from a rooftop three miles away would have been viewed from a human level instead. bt pdf converter professional

: Meanwhile, Punditguy sends a link to this dramatic tourist video of the wave engulfing a resort and these photos. Those photos are taken by an American in Thailand named Ernest and if you scroll down on his blog, you will read how he ended up in Phuket. This makes the news very human. bt pdf converter professional

December 27, 2004

Tsunami: envisioning the horror

: TVNewser reports that TV networks are falling over themselves to buy tourist video that captures the instant power and horror of the tsunami. bt pdf converter professional

: These pictures at News.com.au come close: look at the sequence of unexpected destruction on a beautiful, sunny day. bt pdf converter professional

Dr. I've-Had-My-Phil

: TVNewser tried to find anybody who liked Dr. Phil's appearance on Meet the Press. He failed. bt pdf converter professional

Rerun: Two of my favorites

: Howard Stern's recent appearance on David Letterman's show is rerun tonight. bt pdf converter professional

Help

: Southeast Asian bloggers are putting together a blog with information on helping or finding information on victims of the earthquake and tsunami. bt pdf converter professional

Pulse taken

: BlogPulse's year-end roundup makes for some interesting reading. [Full ego disclosure: I'm happy to be included in the top-cited blogs. Thanks for the links, folks!]bt pdf converter professional

Vloggercon

: Unmediated passes on news of an impending vloggercon (for video blogging). If the date holds -- Jan. 22 -- I won't be in town. Damn!bt pdf converter professional

Fortune

: Fortune's next issue on the top 10 trends to watch for leads off with blogs ina story by David Kirkpatrick and and Daniel Roth. They just put the story online -- free! -- and so here's the link. I haven't even had a chance to read it (I'm still visiting with family) but I'm letting you know about it first. bt pdf converter professional

: Just got back and had time to read the story. It's very good -- blogs from Fortune's perspective of corporate America with a simple message: You can't afford to ignore these things. bt pdf converter professional

Says Bill Gates:

"It's all about openness," says chairman Bill Gates of Microsoft's public blogs like Scobleizer. "People see them as a reflection of an open, communicative culture that isn't afraid to be self-critical." ...bt pdf converter professional

Says Bill Gates, who claims he'd like to start a blog but doesn't have the time: "As blogging software gets easier to use, the boundaries between, say, writing e-mail and writing a blog will start to blur. This will fundamentally change how we document our lives."

Not to mention change the world. bt pdf converter professional

On the Air

: Reminder that I'll be on Air America's Morning Sedition at 8:30 ET. My son's going into the studio with me to see how they make radio: Guys talk. bt pdf converter professional

December 26, 2004

The tsunami

: The Independent has a helpful if horrifying country-by-country report on the impact of the earthquake and destruction. Here's a map from The Age in Australia. bt pdf converter professional

: The Age asks readers to send in their stories and this comes from an Australian near Phuket:

We came to Koh Tao on a two week holiday to relax in the sun......
AdvertisementAdvertisementbt pdf converter professional

I was standing on the beach about 30 meters from the shoreline at a dive shop when I heard raised voices and looked around. The deck chairs that were lining the beach were floating toward me. It was a bit confusing at first as nobody had any idea what was going on. There was no loud noise or wind, just all of a sudden the sea had risen a good 10 meters. bt pdf converter professional

Then the wave sucked out away from the shore a few hundred meters, exposing the coral reef that I had dived on a few days earlier. That's when people really realised something was terribly wrong. All of a sudden all the dive instructors and staff of the nearby restaraunt ran down the beach to see if anyone was pulled out, only to find themselves faced with a surging ocean at least 15 meters high. At this point I was standing on a small cement wall at the top of the beach and watched as they scrambled up the beach and up the steep hillside on the edge of the bay. bt pdf converter professional

When the second wave came in it simply tore apart the wooden buildings that sat at the top of the beach, the water came up to my knees and very neally took me off the wall. When the second wave sucked out, everyone who could bolted for the slopes on the sides of the bay.bt pdf converter professional

The third and probably largest wave came surging forward and simply ripped apart the cement buildings like they were made of balsa wood. I saw a friend of mine scramble onto a roof about 5 meters from me as the water reached its peak - only to hear a loud crack and see the roof lurch badly. I couldn't believe my eyes when the entire roof - with my friend on top, floated to the side and was sucked out into the bay and out of sight.bt pdf converter professional

It just seemed so impossible, 10 minutes earlier we had been sitting down on the beach drinking a coffee, and now the entire beach had been ripped apart and my friend and all the buildings were simply gone.bt pdf converter professional

The waves continued for a good hour after, gradually getting smaller only to reveal the complete devastation left behind. There was complete confusion as people were running around trying to find each other - or simply sitting in the wreckage with vacant looks on their faces. Later I found out that my friend had been rescued by boat with a mild concussion and lacerations from all the wreckage in the water and is at this moment in Phuket hospital....

: The dramatic first-person account of a Washington Post reporter who swam through the tsunami off Sri Lanka:
I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Come back! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea." He was swimming behind me, but closer to the shore.bt pdf converter professional

I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. All seemed peaceful....bt pdf converter professional

Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock walls of the island with astonishing speed. The vast circle of golden sand around Weligama Bay was disappearing rapidly, and the water had reached the level of the coastal road, fringed with palm trees....bt pdf converter professional

Instead of the ark, I grabbed a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.bt pdf converter professional

After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I did not realize was that the floodwaters would recede as quickly and dramatically as they had risen.bt pdf converter professional

All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed. Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings, and were bobbing up and down furiously.

: The science of a tsunami:
“The effect of the earthquake is like throwing a stone in a pond, except that you are throwing it from below. You get the equivalent of a splash and water is displaced with waves spreading outwards,” he said.bt pdf converter professional

Over the ocean, the waves of a tsunami are small, probably no more than a few centimetres to a metre high. Fisherman 20 miles out at sea barely notice their passage.bt pdf converter professional

Their speed depends on the depth of the water, but is typically several hundred miles an hour. The deeper the water, the faster the waves travel and at the bottom of the deepest ocean they can keep pace with a jet aircraft.bt pdf converter professional

As yesterday’s tsunami approached the coasts of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia and the Maldives, it slowed. The more it became compressed, the more it grew in height. As it reached the shore it grew into a monster.

: The official USGS data: 9.0. bt pdf converter professional

: I went to the United Nations' site earnestly expecting to find some update on relief efforts and I find nothing (save for a link about Iraq). You might think I"m being unfair but I don't. Shouldn't they of all agencies in the world be prepared on a moment's notice to at least suggest how people could help people in disasters? bt pdf converter professional

: Jeff Ooi continues to link to news and other bloggers' reports. bt pdf converter professional

Secular Britain
:
: A new survey finds most Britons don't believe in God. Compare with Americans here.

To say that Britain is rapidly becoming a godless country would be too strong, but a YouGov survey provides overwhelming evidence that the British are now a largely irreligious people.bt pdf converter professional

Only a minority believe that God exists and almost everyone acknowledges that Britain is becoming an increasingly secular society.bt pdf converter professional

There is little or no evidence of active hostility towards either religious people or religious beliefs.bt pdf converter professional

Instead, the national mood appears to be one of benign indifference. Most people give the impression of regarding religion almost as a consumer good, one to be consumed by those who happen to have a taste for it.

Now I'm sure some of the folks who argued with me over religion will see this as a sure sign of the path down which we're headed, now that we've happy-holidazed ourselves, a sure sign of a worldwide war against religion. I don't. America still thinks of itself as a religious nation (though a heckuva lot more people say they're religious than go to services; a heckuva lot more people belong to churches than go to services in many places). And I note in this story a strong tolerance of religion by the nonreligious; in the recent discussion here, the assumption by many -- wrong, I believe -- is that the secular are hostile to the religous. Live an let live -- eternally or not -- that's the attitude I see. bt pdf converter professional

Air America Morning Sedition notes

: I'll be back on Air America's Morning Sedition Monday at 8:30 ET. Here are my notes, which I'll try to share in case you all have words of wisdom (on the jump):bt pdf converter professional

Revolutionary media moments from 2004… in which the citizens take control of media: bt pdf converter professional

The Dean Scream… marks the moment when the public sets the spin, instead of spin alley. I don’t buy the argument that Dean was only speaking up because of a loud crowd; every candidate plays only to the TV cameras and Dean was trying to play the role of a winner, even though he had just lost in Iowa. Throughout the campaign, he tried to play the role of an antiwar leftist, even though he was more of a moderate. The forced fakery of the scream confirmed the view of many voters that the guy wasn’t what he seemed. That was the spin of the Scream remixes – and besides, it was a great punchline for a new medium flexing its multimedia muscle. Spin alley is over; in the future of campaign coverage, we will come directly and quickly to citizens’ media – rather than pundits, pollsters, or spinsters – to find out how it plays.bt pdf converter professional

Dan Rathergate… of course, marks the ascendance of citizens’ media and the descendance of big, old, top-down, one-way, haughty, know-it-all, one-size-fits-all news. It took citizen bloggers 18½ minutes to fact-check Dan Rather’s ass and though citizen journalists will not replace the pros, we will see them report more and more and if big media is smart, they’ll find ways to cooperate and coopt rather than disdain and dismiss. bt pdf converter professional

Jon Stewart on Crossfire… marks nothing in terms of substance (it was a great comedy routine) but it means everything in terms of the future of media distribution: At most, 500,000 saw it on big CNN but on the web, via iFilm and Bittorrent, an estimated 3-5 million saw it. Witness the death of the power of the network; witness the birth of the citizens’ network. TV will never be the same: We’ll get what we want when and where and how we want it. bt pdf converter professional

Add this all together, and we will mark 2004 as the year of the media revolution. We took control.bt pdf converter professional

Another major event this year was, of course, the Janet Jackson’s breast and the flood of censorship it unleashed, culminating – so far – in Howard Stern’s desertion of broadcast. bt pdf converter professional

Together with Morning Sedition, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the nine complaints that led to a patently ludicrous and wasteful indecency investigation of the Greek Olympics on NBC. The FCC cut us off at the pass by quietly posting those complaints on the web. I’m betting that at least some of these are the work of guerilla comics and fans of Howard Stern and the First Amendment, who want to show this FCC jihad for the absurd and ultimately offensive exercise it is. bt pdf converter professional


In current news…bt pdf converter professional

The Bernie Kerik pile-on… it may be fun sport since Kerik is such a nincompoop. But I say there is a dangerous precedent being set in this gleeful exhibit of gotcha journalism. The coverage of the presidential election turned all too much into gotcha journalism (see the Swift Boats) and I’m sorry to see that continuing. Bernie Kerik was no longer a threat to national security once he withdrew his nomination. Yes, of course, there are some apparently legitimate stories about edgy things he may have done as New York police commissioner. But the truth is that The New York Times is going after Kerik with great joy because they want to go after Rudy Guliani’s presidential aspiration. Even now, the 2008 game of gotcha begins. And that worries me because every person President Hillary Clinton appoints will go through a ringer worse than this one. If you can’t escape the pile-on even by withdrawing, then no one will want to risk lifelong scrutiny for a bad-paying government job. We’ll end up with bland bureaucrats in power. We have to stop acting as if our politicians are perfect. Of course, they’re not perfect. They’re politicians! bt pdf converter professional

And I just added Tim Russert's leap over the shark, below. bt pdf converter professional

Meet the Press jumps the shark

: I was appalled this morning to hear Tim Russert interviewing -- if you can call an exchange of meaningless pap and platitudes an interview -- with TV quack shrink Dr. Phil. They traded baseless generalizations about "the family" for way too long. bt pdf converter professional

Add this to the Meet the Press sin of having Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton on a few weeks ago to talk religion.bt pdf converter professional

Who the hell is booking this show? Meet the Press has been the smartest show on TV. They can get anyone they want. They used to try a little harder to find someone smart. bt pdf converter professional

Now their guests are as random as an elevator ride.bt pdf converter professional

For shame.bt pdf converter professional

: James Wolcott seconds the motion:

What's next, Suzi Orman laying out Social Security privatization for us between teeth bleachings? bt pdf converter professional

I'm not sure what which was worse, Dr. Phil's thimble-deep patriarchal profundities or the sage nods with which they were received by Untiny Tim.

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Tragedy in south Asia

: A horrendous earthquake and tsunami:

The world's biggest earthquake in 40 years hit south Asia Sunday, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India and swamped tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives, killing more than 6,300 people.bt pdf converter professional

A wall of water up to 30 feet high triggered by the 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra caused death, chaos and devastation.bt pdf converter professional

"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said.

: Bangkok blogger Ron Morris has amazing updates [via Jeff Ooi]. See these photos (1 - 2)bt pdf converter professional

: Here's a Dutch blog that appears to be made up entirely of Google news alerts; this is the page on quakes. bt pdf converter professional

: Glenn Reynolds has more links. Command Post's reports here. bt pdf converter professional

Merry, indeed

: Colleague, friend, and fellow blogger Joe Territo got an amazing Christmas present: The family's adoption is final. bt pdf converter professional

December 25, 2004

Reports from Iraq

: Zeyad is back with two very informative posts at Healing Iraq. Zeyad's reporting comes in shades of gray: not the white of Iraq The Model or the black of Riverbend. As much as I love and respect the ITM guys for their courageous stand in favor of a free future and as glad as I am that we can hear every perspective, including Riverbend's angry view, it is Zeyad who provides sophisticated, balanced, yet personal and human reporting from Iraq. From his first post, he was glad to be free but also bluntly realistic about the hardships and fears he and his family are living under. bt pdf converter professional

In the first post today, Zeyad gives us an incredibly detailed and eduational post about the Iraq election process, more than I've read anywhere else. He explains what all the coalitions and lists are and how people will vote for lists but only the top candidates from successful parties will get into National Assembly based on their vote total. Zeyad does a wonderful job explaining it, but it's quite confusing:


A registered voter will cast his vote for ONE of the 93 lists. The National Assembly will consist of 275 members. A candidate would need (total number of voters/275) votes to get a seat in the assembly. For example, if 10 million people vote, divide 10,000,000 by 275 and you get 36,363 votes required for a candidate to be on the assembly (actually it's 36363.6 votes but I'm not quite sure how they are going to deal with fractional numbers).bt pdf converter professional

So, for a list that gets 11% of the votes (1,100,000 votes), they are allocated 11% of the 275 seats which is [275/11=]25 members. If that particular list has 200 candidates, only the top 25 members on the list get the seats. Therefore it's easy to conclude that the higher a candidate's name is on the list, the more likely they would get a seat. I hope I haven't confused anyone!bt pdf converter professional

I should add that the majority of Iraqi voters are in fact confused and unfamiliar with these details and I have a feeling that the major players intend to keep it this way. The IEC has promised to distribute pamphlets and handbills explaining the above process in simple terms to Iraqi voters.

Nonetheless
Recent polls by the IEC indicate that some 80% of eligible voters (all Iraqis over 18 who can prove their Iraqi identity) in the country have registered.
Take that, those of you who think that there are people on this earth who aren't ready for democracy. Take that along with the incredible turnout in Afghanstan. I will bet that even with the fear of dying at the polls, more Iraqis will show up to vote than at too many American elections. We take our freedom for granted. That, and much more:bt pdf converter professional

In his second long post of the day, Zeyad catalogues the daily difficulties of life in Baghad: still no electricity for hours and even days at a time (why haven't we yet received a decent explanation for this>), continuing shortages of fuel in an oil-rich land, and phones that just don't work. Clearly, it is hard and dangerous to get the infrastructure built with terrorism at any corner, but as in any electorate, it is the daily issues of life that will affect the outcome of an election. bt pdf converter professional

Christmas cheer

: David Letterman takes his show to the troops in Baghdad again:

When hands flew in the air in response to requests for a volunteer to help deliver the opening monologue, he asked: "Isn't that how you got here?"bt pdf converter professional

With the help of cue cards held by an Army soldier, Letterman ran off a series of crowd-pleasers:bt pdf converter professional

"Iraqi elections are in January. Hurry up and pick somebody so we can get the hell out of here," he said.

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Merry Christmas, friends

: I have to tell you that there is no sweeter moment than sitting in the congregation for the church's family service on Christmas Eve, listening to my son in the pulpit, reading the lessons, and watching my daughter as an angel, looking the part. Pride and joy and hope well up. bt pdf converter professional

I read my Christmas posts over the last three years. The first, in 2001, was, of course, about recovering from September 11th. The next two were about war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This year, there is plenty of darkness we could concentrate on: continuing war in Iraq, continuing fear, continuing political animus. bt pdf converter professional

But we also have hope for the beginnings of democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, even Palestine. We have hope for the small beginnings of new connections in the world as Joi Ito tells us. And I have my family, my wonderful children, the preacher and the angel. Watch your children and you cannot help but have hope.bt pdf converter professional

So this Christmas for me is about small beginnings of hope and the hope children bring. bt pdf converter professional

Merry Christmas, my friends. Have hope.bt pdf converter professional

December 24, 2004

Joi to the world

: Joi Ito writes the perfect Christmas greeting to the world for this year: A call for remembering the need to use this new medium of ours to build bridges with global voices. Joi reprints the latest version of the Global Voices Convenant (formerly a manifesto; thanks for changing it to covenant, folks). Says Joi:

...at our fingertips, we have the ability to reach out and speak to, build bridges with and interact with those people we have been "wishing well" to in the abstract for all of these years. We have a long way to go before we are able to hear the voices of everyone on earth, but I believe that providing voices and building bridges is essential for the World Peace we all wish for.
Amen.bt pdf converter professional

Others are wondering what the year ahead holds for blogging and media. Others are saying that blogs will get respect or advertising or big-media attention.bt pdf converter professional

My fondest hope is that blogs grow ever-more international. I've now met bloggers from Iraq, Iran, Kenya, Malyasia, China, the Phillipines, India, Germany, England, Australia, Canada, France... Blogs have allowed me to build or cross bridges that would not have been possible before: person to person, around boundaries, around governments, around censorship, around prejudice, creating understanding and friendships. It's a small process, a link at a time. But that is how our world works now. It's not about masses. It's about masses of individuals. Every link we build to someone in another land, every bit of understanding we share, every friendship we form is a link to world peace. bt pdf converter professional

So Joi could not have written a more appriate message for Christmas: It's about people. It's about peace. bt pdf converter professional

: And thanks to Doc for the headline. bt pdf converter professional

: The Global Voices covenant is already being translated into other languages. The start:

We believe in free speech: in protecting the right to speak -- and the right to listen. We believe in universal access to the tools of speech. bt pdf converter professional

Wir glauben an Meinungsfreiheit: Schutz des Rechtes, seine Meinung zu äußern. Und des Rechtes, zuzuhören. Wir glauben an unbeschränkten Zugang zu den Instrumenten von Meinungsäußerung. bt pdf converter professional

إننا نعتقد بالكلمة الحرة: بحماية الحق في إسماع الغير وحصول الفرصة للإستماع لهم. لكل فرد في هذا العالم الحق في الحصول على أدوات تساعدهم على ذلك. bt pdf converter professional

Nous croyons en la liberté d'expression, en la protection du droit de parler et du droit d'écouter. Nous croyons en l'accès universel aux outils d'expression.

Now that is how to say Merry Christmas to the world. bt pdf converter professional

Consumer-driven advertising

: In a piece for Technology Review, John Battelle translates the weblog discussion on sell-side advertising started by Ross Mayfield and picked up by Battelle here (I joined in here). Battelle changes the name to publisher-driven advertising but I don't think I like that because it doesn't go far enough. bt pdf converter professional

What we really want -- the endgame -- is consumer-driven advertising. bt pdf converter professional

Says John:

Ideally, commercial media would consist of equal partnerships between three parties: publishers, the audience, and advertisers. In reality, advertisers, the group with the most money, hold all the cards. Publishers have been relegated to the role of supplicant, and the audience—well, we pretty much have to swallow whatever deal the publisher and the advertisers cut.bt pdf converter professional

For the most part, the Internet has inherited this model from print publishing: on the Web, there are far more publishers trolling for ad dollars than there are advertisers doling them out. But the Internet’s interactivity suggests an alternative economy in which the long-standing imbalance between publisher, audience, and advertiser could be corrected. A system of Internet-based marketing, which I’ll call Publisher-Driven Advertising, or PDA, may be soon possible. In this system, publishers would pick and choose from a vast supply of advertisers.

The idea, to recount it as simply as possible, is that rather that advertisers would make ads available; publishers would pick up the best ones for their audiences and interests; advertisers would pay only for performance.bt pdf converter professional

In the previous discussion, I tried to take this another step by suggesting that publishers (bloggers, that is) and consumers should create advertising. Yes, there'd be screeching that the creative wouldn't match the advertisers' brand messages -- but when you think about it, that's damned silly: Who better to create the brand message the works than someone who has bought your product?bt pdf converter professional

Now I will take this one step further, arguing for consumer-driven advertising and ad transparency: In this new medium with all its targeting power, how much better it would be if we could tell the targeters: Don't give me car ads because I'm not in the market for a car now, thank you. Don't give me feminine products because I'm a man. Don't give me booze ads because I'm on the wagon. We'd be telling them not to waste their money paying for our eyeballs. That's better for the advertiser: far more efficient. It's better for the publisher: far more efficient. It's better for consumers: far less irritating. It makes advertising actually useful. What a revolutionary concept!bt pdf converter professional

See Jarvis' First Law of Media: Give the people control of media, they will use it. The corollary: Don't give the people control of media, and you will lose. (More broadly expressed: Bet on that which gives citizens control. And bet against those who try to maintain control apart from the public.)bt pdf converter professional

See also Oren's corollary: Every ad a wanted ad. bt pdf converter professional

Clearly, this doesn't work for every product ("please, please give me ads for the latest and greatest in toilet paper tissue"). But when this does work -- when the consumer becomes your advertiser -- then we have reached the real ideal to which Battelle refers. bt pdf converter professional

In this brave new world of advertising... Palm puts out a marketing RFP for the Treo. I am a big Treo fan and I know many of you are, so I sign up to put that ad on Buzzmachine, getting paid for all your clicks (or perhaps even purchases). But then I see that I can do a better job selling the wonders of the Treo because, as a consumer I know what appeals to me, so I create my own ad that outperforms Palm's creative. Meanwhile you, dear reader, get to tell my ad-targeting software that you aren't in the market for a phone and so I won't waste that pageview on you; I'll sell you a good book, instead. bt pdf converter professional

In the end, everybody benefits -- except, perhaps, for the old-style ad agency that made its money off creative and media buying, a model that will have to change along with the rest of media in this new age. bt pdf converter professional

: MORE: When I first posted about creating ads, I thought it was a little nutty. But since then, we've seen the consumer-created iPod ad getting great distribution. Here's the NY Times reporting in the phenom.

New ads and ideas for campaigns are increasingly popping up without client or agency involvement, whether online, on television or metaphorically nailed to boardroom doors.bt pdf converter professional

Various people with diverse motives are behind the proliferation of vigilante marketing. They are freelancers and fans - even agencies - looking for accounts, and they have shown up this year to advertise or try to advertise products as they see fit.bt pdf converter professional

George Masters of Irvine, Calif., who teaches Web design and graphics to high school and community college students, said he created a 60-second animated commercial for the iPod Mini music player partly because he likes making animation with graphics. But he also said that some measure of evangelism was involved.

: See also the wonderful SpecSpot, where creative types show off their talent in hopes of attracting work by making fake commercials for real products -- many much better than the real commercials. (I first wrote about it here.)bt pdf converter professional

Turning the world into podcasts

: Thanks to the link from Instapundit, I just downloaded BlogMatrix Sparks "to record streaming Internet radio programs and download podcasts and store them in your media player (iTunes or Windows Media Player). Sparks! uses an interactive directory of radio stations and podcasts to help you find content."bt pdf converter professional

There is no documentation yet but it's quite cool. I'm using it to record my appearances on Air America's Morning Seditionbt pdf converter professional

In fact, I now see that David Janes, creator of Sparks, is the nice guy who recorded my last appearance on Morning Sedition. bt pdf converter professional

Americans and religion

: A new Gallup poll on Americans and religion says:bt pdf converter professional

: Eighty-eight percent of Americans say it is OK to say merry Christmas "as a way to spread holiday cheer."bt pdf converter professional

: Of those who do not identify with a Christian religion, 79 percent say it's OK to say Merry Christmas.bt pdf converter professional

: Asked which greeting they would use with someone they just met, 41 percent said they'd say happy holidays while 56 percent said they'd say merry Christmas. bt pdf converter professional

: Asked whether they're upset with the shift from merry Christmas to more secular greetings, there's a split: 44 percent said it's a change for the better, 43 percent for the worse. bt pdf converter professional

: Regardless of religious affiliation, 96 pecent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Four out of 10 Americans say they attend religious services on a regular basis.bt pdf converter professional

: Eight-four percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Another five percent are affiliated with nonChristian religions. bt pdf converter professional

"Religion is very important to about 6 out of 10 Americans, while another quarter say that religion is fairly important in their lives. Only 16% of Americans in 2004 said that religion was not very important to them. This measure of the personal importance of religion to one's daily life has not changed much during the last decade."bt pdf converter professional

What does that say to those who argue that Republicans are the religious ones? Yes, the poll finds that Republicans are more likely to attend church than Democrats or independents. But they didn't get 84 percent of the vote. bt pdf converter professional

: Among the 9 percent who say they have no religious affiliation are agnostic or atheist, "tend to be politically liberal, Democrats, independents, younger, living in the West, students, and those who are living with someone without being married." In short: Berkeley.bt pdf converter professional

: Protestantism is fading. Young people, 18 to 29, are the least likely to attend church overall. Among Protestants, only 37 percent of 18 to 29s identify themselves as Protestant vs. 63 percent for those age 65 and older. bt pdf converter professional

: SEPARATELY: See this report about the International Bible Society sponsoring the distribution of New Testaments in the Colorado Springs Gazette. There's a supposed controversy about this. I don't know why. There are ads for churches and synagogues in every paper. I get plenty of advertising that doesn't relate to me; if this doesn't relate to you, then ignore it. I agree with Tom Rosenstiel:

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington research organization affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, disagreed.bt pdf converter professional

"I think there is a free speech issue here," Mr. Rosenstiel said. "I think this is one of the things about newspapers: they deliver you everything. If a newspaper is open to all, I don't understand the issue here. Are we frightened of having this in our house? Should people of one religion not read the scriptures of another? We can't neuter our society."

The problem, from a press perspective, is that reporters are forever on the lookout for someone who is going to be "offended" and that becomes a story: "Some Jews and Muslims said getting the New Testament with the Sunday paper felt like being proselytized in their homes. Journalism critics debated whether this was free speech or skating too close to an endorsement of a particular religion." But, in fact, only five people canceled subscriptions over this -- far fewer than when a cartoon is dropped, the publisher said. bt pdf converter professional

This shows how the press encourages our culture of complaint, our society of offense.
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America, the digital third world

: Network visionary David Isenberg cites an article on why we are so far behind other countries -- even Jamaica -- in mobile uptake and quality and then says:

Too many networks, not enough investment. The same thing seems to be happening in U.S. broadband policy. The United States, the FCC, the telcos, etc., are making a big deal out of multimodal competition. (The telcos want to keep other people off the poles, outa their fiber, and offa their twisted pairs, so they support the idea -- idea -- of cable plus wireless plus broadband-over-powerline plus . . . This might be good for the telcos, but will it put the U.S. behind the rest of the developed world for the next 20 years?
And I note this on the FCC's site today reminding utility-pole owners that they have to provide access to their poles for wireless companies at a reasonable rate. bt pdf converter professional

We're combing navel lint while the rest of the world is racing ahead of us. bt pdf converter professional

December 23, 2004

Watchable

: Nick Denton is on of The Wall Street Journal's 15 people to watch. He shares the stage with Kofi Annan. bt pdf converter professional

And God rolled His Eyes, continued

: Conservative columnist Michele Malkin makes just the point I was making about the real war against religion in the world:

Yes, it's maddening when politically correct bureaucrats ban nativity scenes and Christmas carols in the name of "diversity" and "tolerance." We are under attack by Secularist Grinches Gone Wild. But the war on Christmas in America is a mere skirmish.bt pdf converter professional

Around the world, a bloody, repressive war on Christians rages on....bt pdf converter professional

If America's mainstream media would give the global War on Christianity just a fraction of the attention it pays to the War on Christmas, lives might be saved. And light would be shed on the true heroes of the original religion of peace.

: LATER: I'll clarify two points: First, as I said in my original post, there are wars against Jews and wars among Muslims not to mention Muslim and Hindu. So, no, I'm not saying that there is a war just against Christianity (and I don't know whether Malkin is). Second, the point where Malkin and I agree is that in any case, the moaning about a religious war in America is trivializing what is happening elsewhere in the world; it's silly and unbecoming of people who have the privilege of living in the freedom we have. bt pdf converter professional

Now I'll repeat what I said in the comments: It's Christmas Eve. Let's call a truce, please, and not start religious wars here. Thank you. Merry Christmas. bt pdf converter professional

Fishing with a howitzer

: Cathy Seipp takes on Prof. Pondscum's best buddies. Go get 'em.bt pdf converter professional

Whine

: I'm sick and grumpy (not a cause-and-effect relationship). Blogging if I come out of a fevered fog. bt pdf converter professional

Can we eliminate the handshake from our culture? I'm not germphobic but why get sick if you don't have to? I'm thinking of becoming eccentric in the model of Donald Trump and Howard Stern: I'm going to wave or bow. I'm going to wear masks. I'm going to disinfect every surface I touch. I'm going to let my fingernails grow....bt pdf converter professional

Nevermind me, I'm in a fevered fog. Gawd, I hate being sick. bt pdf converter professional

FCC follies: The Olympics complaints

: The FCC quietly posted to its web site the nine complaints that triggered a Commission investigation of the Olympics.bt pdf converter professional

I'm betting that many if not most of them are the fine work of fans of Howard Stern and the First Amendment who have a well-developed sense of comic absurdity and enjoy painting the FCC into a corner: Hey, suckas, if you're going to censor Stern and Jackson and Bono, then censor this! One clue: A complainer says the FCC should go after Oprah Winfrey (a rallying cry for us Stern fans; she did exactly what got Stern a huge fine but she's skating so far). Another clue: They argue that commercials for Father of the Pride -- a cartoon; it tried and failed to be a little sophisticated but it was still just a cartoon -- and The Exorcist are indecent. bt pdf converter professional

Why did the FCC put this up now? It could be because they wanted to cut off my Freedom of Information Act request at the pass (I filed it with Air America's Morning Sedition and the FCC wouldn't want either of us to have a good story). It could also be that there is some sane soul in the FCC who's glad to have this absurdity exposed. I doubt that. But a citizen can hope, can't he?bt pdf converter professional

Here is my forensic analysis of the nine complaints. bt pdf converter professional

My favorite goes after a profile of Amanda Beard:

In one of their athlete profiles they described her as the sex symbol of the Olympics, and showing some incredibly inappropriate images of her to prove their point.
Anybody have a copy? Please?
This happened during prime time, when children could be watching. Instead of celebrating the greatness of mankind as represented by the Olympic spirit, they showed pictures designed to incite lust and immorality -- roots of many of the social ills facing our nation today.
This is either a brilliant Stern prankster or someone who badly needs a dose of Viagra. bt pdf converter professional

Two complain about the opening ceremonies, an event so dull only people without lives could stay awake to watch for nasties. One of them whines:

How could NBC be allowed to show the male genitalia on national television, especially during prime time, in their coverage of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies. This was suppose [sic] to be family viewing time. There were children watching. I am referring to when the giant white mask that broke apart into a statue of a nude man. First we had to be subjected to the breast of Janet Jackson in the Superbowl, an [sic] now an even more gratuitous display of pornography and indecency during what was suppose [sic] to be another family viewing event.
The Washington Post gets to the bottom of this cultural scandal, reporting:
Actually, the writer is referring to the gigantic replica of a Cycladic head, so popular around 2700 B.C., that broke apart to reveal a replica of a Kouros sculpture, all the rage around the 6th century B.C.
Another complained:
To sit there with my kids and watch a guy basically rip off a girls [sic] clothes while appearing to have sex, has nothing to do with the Olympic tradition.
The Post interprets:
We believe this writer is referring to that happy couple seen frolicking -- and losing some clothing as sometimes happens when one frolics -- in the world's largest puddle, during the artsy-craftsy part of the ceremonies.bt pdf converter professional

FYI, that was right around the time that puddle-wading pregnant chick with the glowing belly showed up. We have been told on good authority that she was supposed to represent Leto, aka Latona, the Titans' daughter, who, I'm here to tell you, was one skeevy chick.

Four of them complain that they heard the word "fuck" during women's beach volley ball. bt pdf converter professional

And two of them complained about commercials for curing erectile dysfunction or entertainment (which are, after all, pretty much the same thing):

While watching the Olympics women's volleyball game, USA v. China, on Saturday 8/14, an advertisement for THE EXORCIST came on. We parents shouldn't have to sit on a Saturday afternoon and worry what kind of messages our children might receive while watching an Olympic event. That advertisement was completely inappropriate and I found myself scrambling to keep my kids from watching that violence.
Yes, their heads started spinning and they began spewing pea soup! You'd think that these folks would like The Exorcist; the devil loses, you know. This correspondent also complains about a Cialis commercial and adds:
Is there no time at all that we can peacefully watch television. You're so worried about Janet Jackson's breast yet you let this kind of advertising just slide. Do your job.
Yes, let's not be sexist! Another letter complains about Father of the Pride promos. Well, there was a lot to complain about with that turkey but not this:
I am not a prude, but subject matter shown in these commercials is not fit for family viewing.
Heh. This correspondent this goes on to describe the Viagra and Cialis commercials in detail.
We all know they are marketing to people who use the drug to enhance performance, not just to treat disfunction.
If they, instead, treated the limp like Jerry's Kids, I assume there'd no problem. bt pdf converter professional

Because of these patently if not purposely absurd letters, government lawyers and sleuths are now investigating the Olympics to see whether sex, drugs, and kids cartoons are ruining the nation's soul. bt pdf converter professional

I could argue that doping and greed are doing that. But, hey, then you'd have to ban baseball... and football... and....bt pdf converter professional

: MORE: The NY Times goes to too great a length to try to analyze FCC Chairman Michael Powell's cynical hypocrisy on the First Amendment. They note (as I did in my Nation story on this) that Powell once defending the First Amendment and even won an award because of it; now he is the national nanny. bt pdf converter professional

Odd that The Times says the FCC would not characterize the complaints regarding that Olympics yet the FCC put the complaints themselves online three days ago. The FCC is gaming us. bt pdf converter professional

December 22, 2004

Smuggled out in a cake

: Martha Stewart sends a message to her fans from inside prison (and links to her appeal). bt pdf converter professional

: Tony Pierce in the comments:

it took jail time for martha to see that drug reform is necessary.bt pdf converter professional

maybe we should send congress to jail for a few months until they get it too.

bt pdf converter professional

Aw shucks

: I started reading Fimoculous' year-end State of the Blogs address nodding my head in agreement:

Before anyone tries to talk you into uttering senseless historical inanities, let's just clear this up: 2004 was not "The Year of the Blog." This was not the year of Howard Dean's bold online campaign, nor was it the year of dismantling Trent Lott. It wasn't even the year of the Paris Hilton tape. That was all last year, and while we have plenty to celebrate about '04, it's best to approach the past 365 days wearing a new look: maturity. In other words, this was the year blogs grew up.bt pdf converter professional

Don't mistake that assessment as a suggestion that blogs are slipping into a rheumatic slumber. To be sure, it was a good year, one in which we (may I use the royal first person?) booted a tiresome TV anchor, sparred with the FCC, pre-reported Ken Jennings' demise, and discovered an entire radical music movement. Excellent work, and that's not even counting the intrepid analysis of Tara Reid's nipple.bt pdf converter professional

But this was a landmark year for independent publishers not so much because of Lewinsky-size scoops, but because the internet came into its own as a medium for experiencing news events. Think about it -- look how many events didn't necessarily happen first online, but seemed to exist because of the blogosphere. The moments that best defined culture in '04 -- the best political debate (Jon Stewart pouncing on Crossfire), the best sex media scandal (Bill O'Reilly raping a falafel), the best TV moment (Janet exposing a Super Bowl nipple), and the best music video (Ashlee Simpson lip synching on SNL) -- were all probably delivered to you via blogger keystrokes. These media events all somehow felt, if you will, "internety" -- somewhat like how Jon Stewart's Daily Show has that intangible quality that makes it feel like television's version of a blog.bt pdf converter professional

In other words, 2004 was the year we became the medium that mattered....

And then I scrolled down to find something I didn't agree with, but it's damned nice of him anyway. You'll see....bt pdf converter professional

: MORE: Uh-oh, there are more year-end wrap coming. I hate year-end wrap, except that they make the last week of the year easy for reporters and editors. That is why they exist. bt pdf converter professional

: MORE: Lileks does his year-end wrap (no mayo) on blogs:

Full disclosure: This writer knows the Power Line guys, and has a Web site of his own. Good thing, too; the Internet is going to make gigs like this obsolete, once enough people realize that some guy in his basement is capable of turning out commentary as insightful as a tenured eminence who was handed a column 30 years ago and has spent the last 10 coasting on a scoop from the Reagan years. It takes dynamite to get some writers out of the paper.bt pdf converter professional

In the new media, however, a clever blog can spring up overnight and get 100,000 readers in a day. That number can quickly fall to zero if the blogger gets a terminal case of the stupids....bt pdf converter professional

In a sense, blogging is so 2004. The next big thing will be videoblogs. You can fit a rudimentary TV studio in a suitcase -- a laptop, a camcorder, a few cables, and a nearby Starbucks with Wi-Fi you can leech onto to upload your reports. This too will be good. One hundred thousand pairs of eyes looking high and low, versus CBS' staring monocular orb. We'll all turn to the nets to see what they think we should think. And then we'll hit the blogs for the rest of the story.

I second that motion. bt pdf converter professional

When bleeding hearts clot

: I really can't stand Sen. Sam Brownback for a host of reasons (his attacks on free speech and the First Amendment not least among them). Nick Kristof can't stand Brownback, either. Yet today Kristof writes:

Sure, Mr. Brownback is to the right of Attila the Hun, and I disagree with him on just about every major issue. But 'tis the season for brotherly love, so let me point to reasons for hope. Members of the Christian right, exemplified by Mr. Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad - thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about.bt pdf converter professional

So Democrats should clamber down from the window ledges, roll up their sleeves and get to work on some of these issues. Because I'm embarrassed to say that Democrats have been so suspicious of Republicans that they haven't contributed much on those human rights issues where the Christian right has already staked out its ground....bt pdf converter professional

Liberals traditionally were the bleeding hearts, while conservatives regarded foreign aid, in the words of Jesse Helms, as "money down a rat hole." That's changing. "One cannot understand international relations today without comprehending the new faith-based movement," Allen Hertzke writes in "Freeing God's Children," a book about evangelicals leaping into human rights causes.

I don't know why the bleeding hearts of the left have coagulated and hardened, but in many quarters, sadly, they have. bt pdf converter professional

That is my complaint with the left and Iraq. Protest the war: fine. Complain about its execution: Sure. Disagree with me on the war: Absolutely. But I have heard too little empathy for the people of Iraq and too little disdain for their dictator. Even when two wonderful gentlemen, just people, just bloggers, came here this month, my fellow travelers tried to fang them just because they were associated with Iraq. That's just plain uncivilized. I've always seen Iraq as a humanitarian issue more than an issue of defense or terrorism but that human aspect is too often lost. bt pdf converter professional

Of course, there are too many other humanitarian issues in the world today and Kristof is warning his fellow travelers that they will be left behind -- their historical leadership usurped by, of all people, the fundamentalists they too often disdain -- if they don't wake up and find their moral bearings again. bt pdf converter professional

Liberalism is supposed to be about people, about caring for your fellow man, not just about shouting. bt pdf converter professional

But if you prefer to judge this on a political rather than a moral basis, then heed Kristof's warning: Don't let Brownback win this one alone. bt pdf converter professional

God would roll His eyes III

: Blog Done With Mirrors has a wonderful commentary on what is becoming known as the Hewitt-Jarvis debate on religion in America this Christmas season. This is the best of blogs: Hugh and I (and others) have a good and respectful discussion and others join in with good thoughts.

If you close one eye and look at America, you can see basic ideas of right and wrong -- a bulwark of a robust, free people -- eroding under attack from reckless and embittered relativists. Close the other eye and you see just as clearly blind fundamentalist morality on the march, threatening to enshrine an un-democratic Old Testament creed as the higher law.bt pdf converter professional

Open both eyes, then, and see what Madison saw. The tension, the negotiation, the struggle for consensus and a common view, is the unscripted balancing act that keeps America safe.bt pdf converter professional

But the best thing about this Hewitt-Jarvis discussion is what it isn't. So far, the focus isn't on government and religion. That's in there, but the posts are largely about We the People and our faiths and our joint ownership of the nation. I like that. Too often talk of religion in America presumes Americans are passive little leaves buffeted by the whims of a few fundamentalists in the corridors of Congress, or a few secularists on the 9th Circuit Court.bt pdf converter professional

We're citizens, not subjects.

: ON THE OTHER HAND: There is the Lileks-Wolcott debate. bt pdf converter professional

: MORE: Michael Bérubé, a profblogger from Penn State, fantasizes:

They warned me this would happen back when I was in boot camp at Focus on the Family, but I didn’t believe them. “You will need to gird your loins for the attack on Christmas,” they said. “Jacob Grinchstein and all his liberal friends in the media, the banks, and the intelligentsia are gearing up for an all-out assault on our Christian nation. First they came after Mel Gibson, and now they’re planning to take the Baby Jesus away from us.” bt pdf converter professional

“Oh, come on,” I said at the time. “Next you’ll be telling me that they use the Baby Jesus’ blood to make matzohs.” bt pdf converter professional

“No, they don’t do that anymore,” I was told. “Today they’re much more indirect and insidious-- they’re forbidding us even to say the word ‘Christmas,’ and they’re forcing your kid to sing ‘dreidel dreidel dreidel’ and make menorahs in your public school. Then when we call them on it, they hide behind Santa and start singing contentless ‘holiday’ music like ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’”

Now don't get all offended. A little humor is a healthy thing, remember. bt pdf converter professional

: And here's John Scalzi (keep that sense-of-humor switch in the "on" position, please):

Here's the deal. Wish me a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Either way, I'll get what you mean, I'll take it in the spirit in which it is given, and in either case, you're likely to get the same response (i.e., "Thanks. You too."). On the other hand, wish me a "Merry Christmas" with that defiant air that means that you are driving your Christ-sticky foot into the ground and digging in against the godless forces of "Happy Holidays," and what you're declaring is that you are, indeed, a first-class idjit. It also signals that you're less interested in wishing me joy and glad tidings than in pimping the baby Jesus, in the guise of being nice. So not only are you a first class idjit, you're also rude. If you're going to wish me a Merry Christmas, try to mean it, for Christ's sake.
: LATER: Hugh Hewitt challenged Jim Geraghty at National Review to tackle somebody his own size -- aka me -- on this issue. I think Hugh did a better job of tackling, frankly. But here's Geraghty's take. Where this is coming out is where it went in: These folks think there is a [pick your lighter synonym for 'war'] on Christianity and I say there isn't. Geraghty wants me to "Go rip the 'You can’t say Merry Christmas, you have to say Happy Holidays' folks!" And I do [pick a lighter synonym for 'rip'] them. In fact, that's just the point. I think they're silly. And silliness does not add up to war or persecution or an attack on religion and Christianity in America. It's silliness. That's precisely the point. That is why I propose that God's reaction to this is a sigh and an eye roll in a world where so many of His children face very real challenges to their faith.bt pdf converter professional

: AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS: Wolcott answers Lileks answering Wolcott:

In a holiday season when some of the leprechaun people are lamenting that not everyone accepts their cry of "Merry Christmas!" like a wet kiss, I am happy to report that here in Manhattan we're taking the savior's upcoming birthday in stride. After leaving the dermatologist's--I was relieved to discover I didn't have ringworm--I passed an adult video store in midtown which boasted a neon Christmas tree and menorah in the window, strategically flanking the latest exciting releases from San Fernando Valley. A Santa cap dangled from some sort of personal pleasuring device, a rather jaunty decorative touch, I thought. This is the sort of ecumenical spirit that ought to be encouraged in those fractious times.
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December 21, 2004

Wiki spam?

: I checked in the Global Voices wiki and what do I find but what appears to be wiki spam. Bastards. bt pdf converter professional

And God rolled His eyes III

: A very good discussion -- which we're all emphasizing is a discussion, not a fight -- continues with Hugh Hewitt here and here and Powerline here. What this is coming down to, in part, is whether the struggle (not war, as Hugh says) over a creche in city hall is an attack on the religious soul of the people (as they say, if I'm getting it right) or a media ploy by both sides (as I say) and thus, we differ on the cultural importance of this. bt pdf converter professional

You're not alone, Craig

: Craig Newmark writes: "I (heart) wonkette."bt pdf converter professional

Santa Slate

: Howard Kurtz just reported that The Washington Post has bought Slate. Here's Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg's announcement. bt pdf converter professional

Howard just called to get react from the two-headed hydra I am as Media Man by day and Blog Boy by night. I said it's a good thing for both; they fit well together, not unlike Dow Jones and Marketwatch. Kurtz said the Post's rationale is that it will bring them more traffic while they bring Slate better ad sales (and thus the first taste of profitablity, they hope).bt pdf converter professional

But I also said that the Post could have met the same goals without the cost and without the risk by establishing with a network of citizens' media, selling ads on and getting traffic from and extending their reach through the best blogs, which can then stay independent. bt pdf converter professional

That requires thinking in a distributed way and that's hard for the old centralized marketplaces to do. bt pdf converter professional

The FCC dodges

: I just got a reply, of sorts, to the Freedom of Information request I filed with the FCC asking for all documents "that contend or support the contention that Viacom and any of its subsidiaries -- including but not limited to CBS and MTV -- or executivesa were in any way aware before the fact that Janet Jackson's breast would be exposed on the Super Bowl telecast." The FCC said the exposure was the only illegal act and the company was the only guilty party -- Jackson and Timberlake were not fined -- and so I wanted to see what evidence they had the Viacom was directly responsible for the incident. My bet is that they have none and that will come out in court. bt pdf converter professional

The FCC produced nothing in its reponse. Its letter says (leaving out the typographical omelet of the legal citations):

It would be inappropriate for us to characterize any evidence before us in the manner that you suggest because the Commission has issued a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) concerning the halftime entertainment show of the National Football League's Super Bowl XXXVIII and the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast. bt pdf converter professional

The FOIA requires a reasonable description of the records sought. If, upon review of the NAL, you determine there are specific records you would like to obtain, you may file a new FOIA request with a better description of the documents you seek...."

I thought I was quite clear. Perhaps an attorney out there could give me better language to file this again. I want to see any interviews with the parties or documents from the parties related to Viacom and company's foreknowledge of this event. From this letter, I'm not sure whether they're saying I did not describe the documents properly or they shouldn't discuss the case while it is active or both or neither. In any case, they dodged the question. So the only thing to do in dodgeball is to pick it up and throw it again. bt pdf converter professional

The other way to go is for me to call the PR department but I think I'll stay with this one more round as I also await my other FOIAs.bt pdf converter professional

My Iraqi friends

: Omar and Mohammed are back in Iraq and back on the blog. They write:

The three of us will never quit fighting for freedom and democracy along with our brothers and sisters in Iraq and the rest of the world and now we're doing this with more confidence and faith in a better future as we knew that Americans supported freedom in Iraq but we had no idea how great this support is and how committed the American people are for the success in Iraq until we saw it in our trip.
Thank you again.
We will never disappoint you because basically we're fighting for our dream.
The third brother, Ali, said the other day that he is leaving the blog. I don't know why; that's a matter between brothers. But we do know that Ali defending his brothers against foolishness while they were in America and at the time, I got a nice note from him. bt pdf converter professional

The three of them are courageous defenders of their freedom. I hope they remain safe and continue their good work. Welcome home. bt pdf converter professional

And God rolled His eyes II

: Yesterday, Hugh Hewitt, PowerlineBlog(oftheYear) and others responded to my post below about whether religion is under attack or attacking in America (I said neither statement is true). I first want to thank these good bloggers for the respectful tone of their disagreement; it's good to debate about a war without going to war (especially about religion). I was sorry I didn't have the time yesterday to respond. Now I'll try. bt pdf converter professional

Start here: No one is this country is being stopped from worshipping as they please. No churches or synagogues or mosques are being shut by mob or government edict. That would indeed constitute a war against Christianity and religion; that would be illegal, unconstitutional, unAmerican, and wrong. But I don't see that happening. And if I did, I would be fighting that with my full First Amendment fervor. bt pdf converter professional

Ah, but you might say that you're prevented from putting a creche in front of city hall or singing Christmas carols in school. But be careful, for if you're using that as an argument of religious persecution, you end up arguing that you want city hall and the school to become a place of worship and that does raise issues. You can't have it both ways: You can't argue that the creche and the carol are harmless displays of culture and then argue that preventing them is religious persection that prevents worship. That doesn't wash. bt pdf converter professional

I'll repeat that I think it is silly and argumentative to demand the right to put a creche at city hall when there are so many other places where you can put it and when there are legitimate Constitutional questions about this. But I also think it's silly and argumentative for the other side to fight to stop it, for if we talk about celebrating the culture and diversity of this country then I say let's start celebrating. And I am tired of this annual charade. bt pdf converter professional

Next, if your argument is that there is a war against religion in this country because there are more signs of secular life and more people who reject religion -- well, folks, that is their right in this country. And so, that is a problem of marketing, not Constitutionality. If you lose converts it could well be because they don't like your message or how you deliver it. If Coke loses customers to Pepsi, Coke isn't being persecuted; it's facing competition. We believe in competition in America -- even for minds, yes, even for souls. That is the essence of the First Amendment: No one side gets an edge up thanks to government. And enforcing that is precisely what protects the free choice of worship -- for you don't want to find government endorsing George's church today but Hillary's tomorrow, do you? bt pdf converter professional

And I find arguments that there is a war on Christianity to be disingenuous in a nation that is overwhelmingly Christian. Here, too, you can't have it both ways: You can't argue on the one hand that the moral values army is sweeping the land and that's why George won -- and then argue on the other hand that you are a persecuted, downtrodden sect. You can't play the power card and the persecution (aka paranoia) card at the same time. Doesn't wash. bt pdf converter professional

I'll make the same argument to the other side in this alleged war: those who say that American is under attack by the religion of a moral values army. That is the point of my reporting on the FCC and the PTC: The country hasn't suddenly been taken over by a religious invasion and it's only the dumb FCC and media that fall for that. To this side, I'll say that you can't argue on the one hand that you've been overrun by the right and on the other hand that the election was close. Doesn't wash. bt pdf converter professional

: Hugh says: "I suggest that the issue of indifference or hostility to faith might be far more real than Jeff realizes because he's never been in a community on the receiving end of bureaucratic venom." Perhaps. But that is a matter of interpretation. In my town, there is a huge fight over a church wanting to build a big building but I am confident this is a battle over property value, not God. bt pdf converter professional

Hugh disagrees with my take on the PTC's complaints about religious humor on TV: "Is a joke about race a cause for concern? Or a joke about ethnicity or faith? Does the fairly consistent attempt by cultural elites to belittle and marginalize faith raise any concern for Jarvis?" Certain jokes can be a concern. But I do not think that Christianity in America and God in Heaven are so fragile they can't take a little ribbing. I do it, too. In church. In the pulpit, even. So this is a matter of degree: I think the PTC's complaint was ludicrous; they were paranoid. Worse, it was PC! One more time, you can't have it both ways: You can't on the one hand say that any joke about religion is off limits and then on the other hand argue (properly) with those who try to say that "Merry Christmas" is off limits. It's only the flipside of the same PC language tyranny. bt pdf converter professional

Then Hugh argues:

Every time an elitist condemns a person of faith as a "theocrat," or a scientist rejects an argument against embryonic stem cell research as a "fundamentalists' position," the effort to expel faith from the public square advances, and not via debate, but via the sneer.... Jarvis' jeremiad against focus on conflicts between the sectarian and the secular is itself an attempt to demote issues of faith in the culture to second-class conflicts, beneath the attention of "serious" thinkers --a back lot drama played out by hayseeds and snake handlers. How convenient, and how wrong.
Oh, heck, one more time: I see you trying to play both sides again. On the one hand, you don't want people to argue with you: You can sneer at their secularism but they can't sneer at your faith? Well, it might be better if they each debated rather than sneered. But I'd say that "elitist" is itself a sneering word. The point is that people disagree. But disagreement and debate are not war and persecution. bt pdf converter professional

: Meanwhile, over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff says:

I think Jarvis is missing the political dimension to the fight. This year's election made clear what political leaders have known for some time -- religious belief and degree of religious commitment are closely associated with how people vote. Thus, the extent to which people hold, and are serious about, religious beliefs has a direct bearing on who will hold political power and what our policies will be across the spectrum of key foreign policy and domestic issues. Put another way, the fact that so many Americans believe in God and take religious teachings so seriously is a major reason why our politics and policies are not like those of Europe, where religion has been marginalized. Thus, the temptation of one side to marginalize religion here is sensible and probably irresistible. So too with the urge of those on the other side to fight back.
Be careful or you're going to marginalize me: I go to church. I vote. I just don't vote your way. You're arguing that the right is religious and the religious are of the right and I think that would be a big mistake. bt pdf converter professional

In the end, the real problem is all about lumping: lumping people together in a nation that believes we are individuals. Each of us has the right to worship as we please and so we must allow all our fellow citizens to worship as they please. We speak and vote as we please and allow our fellow citizens to speak and vote as they please. That is what the First Amendment -- and America -- are all about. bt pdf converter professional


: Powerline also points us to George Washington's wonderful letter to a Jewish congregation:

...The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support....bt pdf converter professional

May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Each under his own vine and figtree. bt pdf converter professional


: BrotherBlogger makes my argument better than I did here:

I think the "religious war" so frequently talked about is nothing more than headline grabbers. I don't doubt that there are those hostile to Christian points of view in America. But it seems a far leap from that to say that these same people want Christianity to somehow disappear and are willing to destroy the First Amendment to do it.
Amen, brother. bt pdf converter professional

And once again, Merry Christmas.bt pdf converter professional

Advice to the bloglorn

: Ethan Zuckerman gives colleague Rebecca MacKinnon a little dating advice. bt pdf converter professional

December 20, 2004

Think, Time

: If Time had any sense, they'd put up the entire blog-of-the-year story (and not just this) online for all to see. Come on, Time, think. bt pdf converter professional

Omar and Mohammed meet Howie

: Howard Kurtz interviews Iraqi bloggers Omar and Mohammed in the Washington Post today. To those who say that they saw only the right-wing on their American visit, note that they fearlessly faced the supposedly liberal media at the Washington Post and at NPR's WNYC. (I should add that I made the introductions for both interviews.)

"People outside Iraq are more worried than the Iraqis themselves," says Mohammed.
Still, given the level of violence, aren't they worried about using their real names on a provocative blog?
"We decided not to be afraid anymore," Omar says. "We're tired of being afraid."
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And God rolled His eyes

: There is a debate supposedly emerging -- even raging -- in this country: bt pdf converter professional

One side says that religion is under attack in America. bt pdf converter professional

Another side says America is under attack from religion. bt pdf converter professional

I say both sides are trivializing faith and the First Amendment. And what would God say? I think He would roll His eyes.bt pdf converter professional

There are too many places on this earth today where religion is most certainly under attack: start with China. There are many nations under attack from religion: start with Iran and Saudi Arabia. And, Lord knows, there are too many places where people are attacked because of their religion: try being a Jew or a Christian in the wrong place; try being the wrong flavor of Muslim in the other guy's turf. bt pdf converter professional

Here in America, we are fortunate enough to have a First Amendment that guarantees our freedom to worship -- or not -- without government interference, a guarantee millions around the world would die -- yes, die -- to enjoy. And yet we squander that fortune, that blessing, with silly, egotistical, show-off squabbles. bt pdf converter professional

Here in America, some people think a fight over a creche in the town square is a fight over religion. No, it's a fight for the sake of a fight. On the one hand, we do enforce separation of church and state -- to guarantee freedom of religion from government -- and so there is no divine right to put a creche in front of the city hall; I want to tell those folks, put it anywhere else. On the other hand, the bureacrats who stop it as if they are standing between America and jihad are being just as ridiculous; a creche or a Christmas tree next to a mennorah is harmless and is part of the diverse culture of America. Similarly, it's right for a school to prohibit proselytizing but it's silly to disallow an instrumental version of a Christmas ditty, as recently occurred in New Jersey. You want to slap both sides in these annual squabbles and just tell them to grow up and count their blessings.bt pdf converter professional

Then there are those in the so-called Parents Television Council who argue that any joke that mentions God is an attack on religion. That's just crap. Freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with freedom of religion -- that's why they are both protected in the First Amendment -- and there's nothing with a joke about God. It's not a sign of a war on God. bt pdf converter professional

And then there are those who say that America has been taken over by a red-state religious jihad because the other side won the election and because a bogus made the insulting presumption that some of us don't have moral values and because the afore-dismissed PTC manufactured complaints about pop culture the way Tootsie makes Rolls. The truth, as I proved, it that it is a phantom army of the few on the fringe. bt pdf converter professional

I want to slap them all back to their senses. But I also want to slap the media who act as if all these alleged religious wars are real news, worthwhile stories, true trends. No, the truth is that once a year, we get the fake stories about wars over Christmas carols; whenever the PTC puts out another press release or the FCC another fine, we get the fake stories about religious outrage at indecency; whenever the right wins an election, we get the fake stories about the revolt of the religious conservatives. All these stories act as if America -- you, me, and your neighbors -- changed overnight into surburban Sunnis vs. Shiites. bt pdf converter professional

There is no religous war in America. That ended more than two centuries ago. And now we enjoy the benefits of that struggle. We should be grateful for that and stop squandering it with squabbles. bt pdf converter professional

: There is plenty of reading material on the topic from just the last few days:bt pdf converter professional

: Here is The New York Times Week in Review asking whether Christmas needs to be saved:

But the demands to bring back Christmas are not simply part of an age-old culture war, with the A.C.L.U. in one corner and evangelicals in the other. There is also a more moderate force, asking whether the country has gone too far in its quest to be inclusive of all faiths. Why, they ask, must a Christmas tree become a holiday tree? And is singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in a school performance more offensive than singing "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel"? "It's political correctness run amok," said Lynn Mistretta, who with another mother in Scarborough, Me., started BringBackChristmas.org. "I'm not for offending anyone, but we're excluding everyone, and everyone feels rotten about it."
: Frank Rich in the same edition of The Times argues soberly that there is a more serious religous confrontation brewing:
As we close the books on 2004, and not a moment too soon, it's clear that, as far as the culture goes, this year belonged to Mel Gibson's mammoth hit. Its prurient and interminable wallow in the Crucifixion, to the point where Jesus' actual teachings become mere passing footnotes to the sumptuously depicted mutilation of his flesh, is as representative of our time as "Godspell" was of terminal-stage hippiedom 30 years ago. The Gibson conflation of religion with violence reflects the universal order of the day — whether the verbal fisticuffs of the culture war within America, as exemplified by Mr. Donohue's rant on national television or, far more lethally, the savagery of the actual war that radical Islam brought to our doorstep on 9/11.
He's right that these are frightening ghosts of anti-Semitism and of terrorism. But, again, they are not of the mainstream.
Yet if you watch the news and listen to certain politicians, especially since Election Day, you'll hear an ever-growing drumbeat that Christianity is under siege in America....bt pdf converter professional

What is this about? How can those in this country's overwhelming religious majority maintain that they are victims in a fiery battle with forces of darkness? It is certainly not about actual victimization. Christmas is as pervasive as it has ever been in America, where it wasn't even declared a federal holiday until after the Civil War. What's really going on here is yet another example of a post-Election-Day winner-takes-all power grab by the "moral values" brigade....bt pdf converter professional

When even phenomena as innocuous as Oscar nominations or the lighting of a Christmas tree can be inflated into divisive religious warfare, it's only a matter of time before someone uncovers an anti-Christian plot in "White Christmas."

Rich has one side of it right -- ridiculing the war on Christmas -- but the other side of it wrong -- seeing an invasion of a moral values army. And he leaves out the other guilty party in this: the media who fan the flames. bt pdf converter professional

: Here's James Lileks complaining that he can't say Merry Christmas anymore and here's Glenn Reynolds agreeing and here's James Wolcott gleefully baiting them both:

Every year we hear the eloquent whines of the "put Christ back into Christmas" chorus. Every year without fail we're told that Christmas itself has become a charged phrase, un-PC, fudged with euphemism. I'm not sure how we could put any more Christ into Christmas this year. Jesus was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, US News ran a cover story on The Power of Prayer, CNN is broadcasting a documentary tonight on "The Two Marys" (Madonna and Magdalene), and Mel Gibson's The Passion is at the red hot center of so many year-end roundup essays....bt pdf converter professional

To read conservative pundits, you'd think everybody was wishing each other Happy Kwanzaa! and averting their eyes from oh so gauche Nativity scenes. I've got news: Even here on the godless, liberal Upper West Side, people wish each other Merry Christmas without staggering three steps backward, thunderstruck and covered with chagrin.

: Oh, lord, one post mentions Frank Rich, Jim Wolcott, James Lileks, Glenn Reynolds, Bill Donahoe, Mel Gibson, and God. Before various of you on various sides act like wolves on the scent of red meat, just remember: When it comes to religion in America, we are not at war. We are blessed. Let's act like it. bt pdf converter professional

: And, in closing, here is a wonderfully generous column from Ed Cone inviting us all to wish him a Merry Christmas:

Merry Christmas. There, I said it, and I meant it, too.bt pdf converter professional

You may tell me Merry Christmas in return, if you please. Or you can say Happy Holidays. That's an efficient little phrase, compressing best wishes for a whole range of events into one snappy alliterative package. Just don't tell me Happy Holidays because you worry that saying Merry Christmas to a Jew will cause him to melt into the floor like the witch at the end of "The Wizard of Oz."bt pdf converter professional

Here's the thing about Christmas: It's an American holiday as well as a religious one.bt pdf converter professional

To many people, it involves a deep spiritual meaning. To many others, it involves a day off and food and family and presents. And to a lot of us there is some overlap between those two meanings, and I say us because as a sentient being who lives in the diverse successor culture to Christendom, the philosophy if not the theology of Christianity, along with the commercial and celebratory rituals of its big December holiday, are an ineluctable and welcome part of my life. Scrooge, school vacations, eggnog, old Coke commercials, the giant Santa at Friendly Center, and a midnight Mass my wife and I once attended at Notre Dame de Paris all coexist peacefully with my own beliefs and practices.

Merry Christmas. And God bless us, every one. bt pdf converter professional


: LATER: Hugh Hewitt disagrees.

It is too easy to say "everything is fine," and "chill." The place of faith in America is a crucial topic that deserves every bit of attention it receives, even when a particular battle seems overblown when measured against the persecution of the house church in China.
Sadly, I don't have time to write more of a response to Hugh so go read his and I'll try to get some blogtime later.
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: Since I am getting links to this post from both Hugh and Glenn Reynolds and -- considering the topic -- there may be new readers here who haven't been subjected to my bio before. So, in the interest of transparency and context: I'm a Congregationalist (not of the UCC flavor but, yes, liberal); I'm co-head of my small church's board and I teach Sunday school and occasionally get wrangled into giving a sermon (to which I have subjected my blog readers). My smarter sister is a Presbyterian minister (I was raised Presbyterian). So I am a Christian and I do not feel under attack in America. I feel free in America -- and I am grateful to both God and the Constitution for it. bt pdf converter professional

A blogal citizen

: I like to call this new medium of ours citizens' media. "Citizen" connotes belonging and that is why I like the word as a substitute for the old-fashioned, one-way notions of readers, viewers, listeners, consumers. Citizens belong. Citizens join. Citizens own. Citizens act. bt pdf converter professional

So I ask myself: Citizen of where? Citizen of what? bt pdf converter professional

A personal irony is that after September 11th, I began to think of myself more as an American citizen than I ever had. It's not that I didn't have pride in the land of my birth before, but it was passive and I was wary of the dangers of putting nation over humanity. But once I was attacked because I was American, I found new belonging, new pride, new resolve. I hang a flag on my lapel and my front fence as a matter of defiance. bt pdf converter professional

At the same time, I started blogging and I came to more new answers to the question, citizen of where? This new medium has, at once, made me feel more local and more global. There are neighbors in town I rarely get to speak with who read and sometimes comment on this blog. And, of course, I've had the privilege of building some bridges to other countries and of crossing the bridges others have built. It was honestly thrilling at Harvard to meet the people on the other sides of those spans: Hoder from Iran, Omar and Mohammed from Iraq, Jeff from Maylasia... I hope at the next one, I get to meet more from Germany, Russia, eastern Europe, Asia.... bt pdf converter professional

But before I start talking like a citizen of the globe, I have to answer the next question: Citizen of what? In meeting all those good people and joining with them was I truly acting like a global citizen or simply like a blogal citizen? (And, yes, I do enjoy the anagrammatic fun of that.) Which community mattered more? Was one community possible only because of the other? This is not just about blogging as a special interest. This is about feeling a sense of citizenship -- belonging, power, responsibility -- in blogs as a result of the world and in the world as a result of blogs. The internet (and blogs) make that possible. bt pdf converter professional

: As I continued to mull the importance and impact of last week's Harvard session, I read Timothy Garton Ash in Friday's Times practically declare the death of the nation-state:

Why is it that Americans do not understand the power of the European Union? Is it because they are simply not well informed by reports from Brussels and other European capitals? Or is it because, as citizens of the world's last truly sovereign nation-state, Americans - and especially American conservatives - find it difficult to acknowledge the contribution of a transnational organization based on supranational law? It's as if they can conceive of power only in the old-fashioned terms of a classical nation-state.
Old-fashioned? The world's last sovereign nation-state? I think Ash is getting a bit ahead of his times ... but perhaps not too far ahead. bt pdf converter professional

Garton Ash isn't completely off: New means of creating alliances -- nation to nation, or person to person without regard to nationality -- mean that the the nation-state as the globe's organizing principle begins to fade, perhaps. And our own sense of citizenship -- and our relationship to other citizens -- broadens to include more people, more places, and more dimensions. bt pdf converter professional

Some will say that this ability to find people of like minds and goals will create "echo chambers." The corollary in media is the complaint that more choice creates "fragmentation." These people see these as bad things. bt pdf converter professional

I don't. I see them as positive developments. More choice in media equals more control for citizens. More communication, information, and conversation across boundaries and interests online equals more connections among citizens and a greater connection for each citizen to a broader (and, at the same time, more local) world. bt pdf converter professional

That is what I witnessed and experienced last weekend at Harvard and before. That is why I am so excited -- and optimistic -- about these bridges and the effort to expand the tools that build those bridges to anyone and everyone in the world. bt pdf converter professional

Then we can move one step beyond Garton Ash's premature prediction: Nations won't be sovereign. Citizens will be. bt pdf converter professional

Is it premature for me, too, to predict all this? Of course, it is. But a blogger can hope, can't he? And are there dangers? Of course, there are. But I have to trust my fellow citizens -- of wherever and whatever -- to use these tools of speech and freedom, in the end, for good. bt pdf converter professional

If this works, we don't just change the world. We redefine the world. bt pdf converter professional


: As Jay Rosen would say, here is some after matter:bt pdf converter professional

: See Jay's wonderful post about all this, including links to Olav Anders Øvrebø, a former editor from Netzeitung (whom I believe I met there) and Nettavisen, pathfinding European online news"papers" -- who now find themselves as citizens of the world of media criticism. Øvrebø impressed Jay -- and me -- by calling English "the latin of our age." There was a bit of predictable controversy at the Harvard session when I kept talking about translating things into English; it was too anglocentric of me, I'll confess. But some agreed with Øvrebø that translation into English also enables conversation and connection and that is good. See the rest of Jay's post about the globe and then his followup about local, inspired by Ed Cone. bt pdf converter professional

: See Rebecca MacKinnon's report on the Harvard event -- magnificently led by Rebecca and Ethan Zuckerman -- at Personal Democracy Forum. bt pdf converter professional

: See also the manifesto (I prefer to think of it as a compact) of the movement that came together at Harvard. (And see Dan Henninger's affirmation in the Wall Street Journal that it is, indeed, a movement.) The latest version includes some of my wiki edits (so blame me if this one makes no sense):

We believe in free speech: in protecting the right to speak -- and the right to listen. We believe in universal access to the tools of speech.bt pdf converter professional

To that end, we seek to enable everyone who wants to speak to have the means to speak -- and everyone who wants to hear that speech, the means to listen to it.bt pdf converter professional

Thanks to new tools, speech need no longer be controlled by those who own the means of publishing and distribution, or by governments that would restrict thought and communication. Now, anyone can wield the power of the press. Everyone can tell their stories to the world.bt pdf converter professional

We seek to build bridges across the gulfs that divide people, so as to understand each other more fully. We seek to work together more effectively, and act more powerfully.bt pdf converter professional

We believe in the power of direct connection. The bond between individuals from different worlds is personal, political and powerful. We believe conversation across boundaries is essential to a future that is free, fair, prosperous and sustainable - for all citizens of this planet.bt pdf converter professional

While we continue to work and speak as individuals, we also seek to identify and promote our shared interests and goals. We pledge to respect, assist, teach, learn from, and listen to one other.bt pdf converter professional

We are Global Voices.

: See John Palfrey's provocative and wise working hypothesis for the confab. bt pdf converter professional

: If you want to do something about all this, you can: Read and quote and, if you can, translate other citizens' media. And support the Arabic blogging tool. bt pdf converter professional


: LATER: Jay Rosen adds:

I want to add one thing. You speak of creating alliances and communication "nation to nation, or person to person without regard to nationality." The Arab blogging tool, it seems to me, is a case of polity-to-polity exchange (or civil society to civil society) which a different thing from state-to-state or person-to-person. Different, and possibly more potent.
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fccchart.gifThe complaint factory

: CNN/Money's site has a year-end piece on the indecency kerfluffle this year and with it came this chart demonstrating nothing more than the efficiency of the so-called Parents Television Councils' complaint factory and certainly not any change in the essence of pop culture or American values. It's simple testimony to the easy of clicking the "send" button. bt pdf converter professional

National Public Blogging

: Terry Teachout says that arts commentary will move on, to blogs, as mainstream media loses interest in (and the ability to afford) it. He's waiting for money to support the habit. bt pdf converter professional

We spend a lot of time talking about how advertising revenue will shift toward citizens' media. bt pdf converter professional

Terry made me think that grant money may follow the same path. Why shouldn't some of the underwriters who support public broadcasting now consider underwriting citizens' media? It's simple, less expensive, more direct. bt pdf converter professional

Whoever takes this job: Think podcasts!

: PaidContent tells us that Audible is hiring an online editorial director. bt pdf converter professional

This person, whoever it ends up being, should think podcasting. bt pdf converter professional

I've had problems in the past with Audible but I also recanted now that I have it working and I listen to This American Life and books. I've been impressed how Audible quickly puts up news events, like the conventions and 9/11 Commission hearings. I'm about to start downloading stuff from Audible.de to work on my German. bt pdf converter professional

My complaint with Audible has been that there still isn't enough content. Enter podcasts. They could provide tons of good content and Audible could encourage the best. But I will suggest that they don't put out everything in the Audible format: Put out MP3s as well and let the people distribute them freely and every one will be a promotion for Audible. bt pdf converter professional

December 19, 2004

Damn: Turning off the Torrent

: PaidContent says that two days after the MPAA went after BitTorrent sites, two of them -- including the pivotal SuprNova.org -- have shut down. Damnit. Not all the Torrents violate copyright but that baby is out with the bathwater. bt pdf converter professional

A Christmas gift to Glenn Reynolds

: Denny Crane (William Shatner) on Boston Legal: "It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy -- something you Democrats would never understand." bt pdf converter professional

Books

: I'm going to speak to BookExpo, the confab of book folks, about citizens' media and blogs and all that in a few months. Please start telling me what you think the book biz should learn from this new medium. I share my thoughts later. bt pdf converter professional

: I neglected to blog this good piece from The Times about all the bloggers turning out books (and the intrepid agent to the bloggers, Kate Lee). bt pdf converter professional

Whereabouts

: Been away: at church until all hours with rehearsals for the Christmas Eve pageant, then seeing Series of Unfortunate Events and the day is gone, over, toast. Blogging later, probably with a few longer posts in the morning.bt pdf converter professional

December 18, 2004

The lure of conquering Gotham

: New York seduced citizen-of-the-world Hoder. bt pdf converter professional

I'd make a lousy Church Lady

: Eric Berlin took the so-called Parents Television Council so-called report on the treatment of religion in the devil's workshop otherwise known as Hollywood and turned it into a quiz. Could you be a PTC censor?bt pdf converter professional

Amber glitch

: An odd sidelight to the horrific story of a mother murdered in Missouri to get her unborn child is the "glitch" in the Amber Alert system, which caused a delay of hours in getting the word out but nonetheless is credited with finding and saving the child:

Complicating the case was a glitch in Missouri's Amber Alert system, which Espey said kept him from widely spreading word that someone had kidnapped a newborn.bt pdf converter professional

Authorities initially refused Espey's request to issue the alert because he could not offer descriptions of the newborn or the abductors, Sgt. Keverne McCollum of the Missouri Highway Patrol's missing-persons unit told The Post.bt pdf converter professional

"We had a live baby, and I thought that should qualify as an Amber Alert," Espey said. "The information I was getting was that we didn't have enough information such as hair color, eye color, skin complexion, size and weight."

Bureaucrats can be deadly. bt pdf converter professional

Desperate

: So now I'm getting spam labeled "Desperate Housewives." It ain't about the show....bt pdf converter professional

December 17, 2004

The real Christmas shortages

: The Wall Street Journal and then the rest of the world reported dire iPod shortages this week. My wife went to the local Apple store and found plenty in all colors. bt pdf converter professional

However, there are two other dire shortages I've seen:bt pdf converter professional

First, American Girl dolls, clothes, and furniture and backordered well into next spring and even into next year. The eBay market is going wild. Could be because of the recent American Girl TV movie or because of bad planning.bt pdf converter professional

Second, I've seen Sirius essentially sold out at all our local electronics stores.
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The latest FCC FOIAs

: I just filed more Freedom of Information Act requests with the FCC (one of the latest filed with Air America's Morning Sedition). Now I have four in the works:bt pdf converter professional

: I'm asking for any evidence the FCC has that any Viacom companies and executives knew of Janet Jackson's breast-baring before it happend. That is, if they were fined and Jackson was not and if the breast-baring was the only crime, then I want to see the evidence that ties Viacom directly to the crime. Due process, you know. bt pdf converter professional

: I asked to see "any documents relating to how the FCC determines the 'community standards' it uses as its guideline in determining indecency and profanity complaints against broadcast media -- including, but not limited to any surveys, focus group results, research, reports, data or other material." The FCC says it enforces "community standards." OK, then how does it know what the community's standards are? bt pdf converter professional

: I asked to see the nine complaints that triggered the indecency investigation of NBC's coverage of the Olympics. This was Air America's suggestion.bt pdf converter professional

: I asked to see any correspondence between Brent Bozell and the Parents Television Council and any of the FCC Commissioners (other than any of the thousands of replies to their thousands of manufactured complaints). bt pdf converter professional

You'll be the first to know what happens. And if you have any more ideas, let me know. bt pdf converter professional

Take that, Prof. Pondscum

: Ali at IraqTheModel refutes Juan Cole and his fellow travelers point by point:

As for polls, we never said that the vast majority of Iraqis love America, as I don't believe it's true and it's not true that the majority of Iraqis hate America also. However, the same polls that Dr. Cole rely on keep telling us that the majority of Iraqis favor elections and want them without delay, which should mean that the majority of Iraqis want democracy and that is what we say and want. So how can we be outside the main public opinion!? However, this is a highly subjective issue and we can wait for the upcoming elections and see how many Iraqis will vote and what they are going to vote for.
He ends with this eloquent takedown:
When are both sides going to realize that it's not only about them! That there are millions of Iraqis, Afghanis, Iranians..Etc who are suffering daily and who are trying to find a solution and a way to achieve their dreams (with the help they are getting from America) and who do not have the slightest interest in supporting any party in America. The world is bigger than you and your partisan conflicts and frankly I'm getting sick of it. Take this crap somewhere else and leave us alone! We have enough problems to deal with and we are not interested in supporting any party anwhere, as simply we cannot afford the time or the effort.
Amen, Ali. All the snarkers and snipers here keep forgetting that this is about the people of Iraq, about helping fellow citizens of this earth have the same rights to freedom, free speech, and self determination that we are blessed to have in this country. It's about the people. bt pdf converter professional

The real revolution

: Dan Henninger, deputy editorial-page editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, spent last Saturday at the Harvard Internet conference soaking in words about the work of people bringing citizens' media to the world and today he writes a wonderful column about the real revolution brewing:

"American influence" is the great white whale of the 21st century, and Jacques Chirac is the Ahab chasing her with a three-masted schooner. Along for the ride is a crew that includes Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, Kofi Annan, the Saudi royal family, Robert Mugabe, the state committee of Communist China and various others who have ordained themselves leaders for life. At night, seated around the rum keg, they talk about how they have to stop American political power, the Marines or Hollywood.bt pdf converter professional

The world is lucky these despots and demagogues are breaking their harpoons on this hopeless quest. Because all around them their own populations are grabbing the one American export no one can stop: raw technology. Communications technologies, most of them developed in American laboratories (often by engineers who voted for John Kerry), have finally begun to affect an historic shift in the relationship between governments and the governed. The governed are starting to win.bt pdf converter professional

Not that long ago, in 1989, the world watched demonstrators sit passively in Tiananmen Square and fight the authorities with little more than a papier-mâché Statue of Liberty. Poland's Solidarity movement had to print protest material with homemade ink made from oil because the Communist government confiscated all the printers' ink.bt pdf converter professional

In 2004, in Ukraine's Independence Square, they had cell phones....bt pdf converter professional

Until recently, one-party or no-party governments had a standing list of answers for people with a different notion: a) we don't care what you think; b) shut up; c) we kill you. There's no sure cure for c, but Plans a and b are becoming obsolete. Once impervious political authorities must now face the possibility of having their information monopoly hammered by an array of mostly American-engineered technology--smart cell phones, communication satellites, e-mail, Web logs (or "blogs") and a seemingly endless stream of information-sharing programs whose arcane names (RSS, Atom) hide their great power.

: LATER: I got a bit of grief before for not mentioning when I link to such an article that it quotes me. I think that's egotistical to do but the argument was that it was disingenuous not to. So be warned that Henninger quotes me at the end and says something too nice. Click at your own risk. bt pdf converter professional

Does God have a sense of humor?

: The LA Times writes that the so-called Parents Television Council released a "study" purporting to show that TV and heathen Hollywood are hostile to religion. bt pdf converter professional

I talked to the reporter and said: First, Brent Bozell's group does not speak for America. Second, so what if there are shows with negative views of religion? There's no rule against that. That's what we call free speech. Those points were quoted in the article. I also said that it is ludicrous to think that entertainment should be created by quota; writers do not and cannot sit down and say that they have to have something nice to say about religion (or whatever your cause is) today; it's their job to entertain, not to preach the PTC gospel. bt pdf converter professional

I'm glad the LA Times reporter, Lynne Smith, took the time to call two critics of the PTC to get another perspective. Others did not. And so, once again, media is swallowing the PTC's nonstory without questioning it. Thus, an impression is created that, first, TV is anti-religion and, second, that there's some movement out there determined to do something about it. bt pdf converter professional

Even PTC's own numbers don't tell the story they want to tell: Of references to religion they found, "22.1 percent were positive, 24.4 percent negative." I wouldn't call that a heathen conspiracy. And what PTC calls negative is often laughable. bt pdf converter professional

Let's look at what the PTC thinks are negative references to religion on TV. The real finding of this study is that the PTC has no sense of humor or irony:

On the 31st American Music Awards, November 16, host Jimmy Kimmel gives his audience a brief list of rules, which concludes, “And finally, and this is a personal thing, no thanking God. God does not watch television. And if He did, He would not be watching this show. He would be watching Tarzan on the WB.”
Whoo, boy, God sure is going to bring a plague of locusts onto the earth because of that. You know, I have more faith in God than that -- faith that He can laugh even at Himself. More:
Lauren asks her mother what Mass is on the February 3 Judging Amy. Amy replies, “It’s what Catholics call church so they can feel more guilty about it when they miss it.” Bruce replies, “Hey!” To which Amy says, “Hey, it’s my dinner party, I’ll cast disparaging remarks if I want to.” (CBS)bt pdf converter professional

On the February 10 Will and Grace, Karen, in an attempt to cheer Grace up, remarks, “Let’s go buy that historic church and turn it into a gay bar.” (NBC)bt pdf converter professional

On the January 15 episode of The Simpsons, Lisa tells Bart, “The Mount Builders worshipped turtles as well as badgers, snakes, and other animals.” Bart replies, “Thank God we’ve come to our senses and worship some carpenter that lived 2,000 years ago.” (Fox) bt pdf converter professional

A senator whose platform is morality and virtue arrives at the casino on the September 29 episode of Las Vegas. Danny says to Ed that the Senator is a hypocrite: “He stands in front of the cameras every chance he gets spouting morals and virtues, meanwhile he’s here once a month, indulging in every one of the seven deadly sins. Oh, and I think he’s up to number nine on the Ten Commandments list, too.” (NBC)bt pdf converter professional

A priest on the October 2 episode of Without a Trace is found in a hotel room with a woman. Only sheets cover the couple, implying a sexual affair. (CBS)bt pdf converter professional

On the April 27 episode of Judging Amy, Bruce’s friend, a priest named Father Ted, has come to town to visit. When Bruce sees Ted, Ted is wearing a dress, wig, and pearls and says he is Theresa now. (CBS)bt pdf converter professional

May 4, on Less Than Perfect, Lydia tells Jeb that she thinks Kip is going insane. Jeb replies, “Well, it may be time for the same conversation that I had with Grandma. I just hope that Kip hasn’t already given all of his money to the 700 Club.” (ABC)

I find all those to be not only harmless but not hostile to religion. bt pdf converter professional

But here you have Bozell's partner in this "study" trying to make it look as if heathen Hollywood is running a fascist campaign against God:

Even so, Frank Wright, president of the NRB, called the negative portrayals "dehumanizing" and compared them to representations of Jews prior to the Holocaust, and blacks in the era of slavery. "Systematic negative portrayals of groups of people are always disturbing," he said.bt pdf converter professional

"They produce the potting soil that leads to persecution."

I have one bit of advice to Bozell and Wright and their coreligionists:bt pdf converter professional

Lighten up.bt pdf converter professional

A footnote for the Professor

: Jeff Reed of CIATech Solutions posts a list of all the Iraqi bloggers for whom he provided free domain registration and forwarding. Note that three of them have much negative to say about the American occupation. bt pdf converter professional

December 16, 2004

Photo gossip

: Gawker is adding party pix (the latest from crashing Jann Wenner's Christmas party, complete with a party-happy GOP pin-up girl, Ann Coulter, chatting with Tim Robbins -- political matter, meet political antimatter).bt pdf converter professional

Stern, the person

: USA Today does a People story on Howard Stern today. They should have done a Money story, for that's where the action is. bt pdf converter professional

Spreading the RSS gospel

: Just got around to reading Heather Green's very good explanation of RSS in Business Week.bt pdf converter professional

Moneychanger in the temple

: Just saw a frightening commercial, a mininfomercial, on FoxNews with Pat Boone "interviewing" Brent Bozell about his book to sell it. Go to one of Bozell's sites and you'll find him hawking now only his books -- in $50 gift bundles -- but also "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" bumperstickers and Christmas-tree ornaments. Go to his other site, and he's begging for donations. bt pdf converter professional

I'm all for the guy having opinions (so long as he doesn't try to force them down my throat). And I'm all for him making money (hey, it's America).bt pdf converter professional

But every time a news organization invites this guy on TV, they should realize that they're not only feeding his apparent agenda -- censoring our popular culture according to his right-wing religious priggish views -- but also stuffing his pockets. bt pdf converter professional

And that's why I'm a bit surprised to see some of the names on this list people helping Bozell "judge" a list of quotes of the year. There are a fair number of journalists listed -- some you know. Aren't they just furthering Bozell's own agenda (and business)?bt pdf converter professional

Winning one

: Even the FCC sees that it can't regulate speech on satellite. A dork broadcaster filed a letter with the FCC asking to extend its censorship to satellite, just to be fair to broadcast (rather than the proper request, which is to end censorship). W. Kenneth Ferree, chief of the Media Bureau, just replied.

The Commission has previously ruled that “subscription-based services do not call into play the issue of indecency” ... and that “[c]onsistent with existing case law, the Commission does not impose regulations regarding indecency on services lacking the indiscriminate access to children that characterizes broadcasting.” ...
Even the FCC isn't that dumb. That's not to say that there aren't lawmakers dumb enough to try this but courts would have to shoot them down and protect the First Amendment. bt pdf converter professional

As we expose the Parents Television Council and its henchmen at the FCC as censors trying to foist their unconstitutional religious agenda on the rest of America, I hope we can stem the post-titgate tide of censorship and once again stand behind our First Amendment. I emphasize "hope." [via Carl Frank]bt pdf converter professional

Freedom blog

: Steve Safran suggests that someone should blog free speech. I try but we need more. bt pdf converter professional

The price of fame

: Howard Stern said this morning that with all his year-end Christmas bonuses and gifts -- he gives something even to the guy who makes his egg-white omelets in the deli downstairs, whom he never sees, mainly out of fear that the guy could accuse him of being a cheap bastard -- the total cost is well into the six figures. He held up fingers in the studio to say how many hundred K he spends but we couldn't see that. bt pdf converter professional

Dear Santa....

: Adam Penenberg has a good media wishlist for 2005.
1. Google News should become a for-profit enterprise.
2. Bloggers should break news. (He's nice enough to cite my FCC FOIA scoop; as I've told anyone who'll listen, what really excites me about this -- besides defending the First Amendment -- is proving that anybody can break news; the tools are in citizens' hands.)
3. Dismantle the FCC. (Amen! Bravo! Yeah!)
4. The end of Nielsen and comScore
5. Media should reassert its role as government watchdog
Read it all. bt pdf converter professional

: Glenn Reynolds says wish No. 2 is already granted.bt pdf converter professional

The Adventures of Prof. Pondscum: The sequel

: Juan Cole, hate blogger, continues to dig himself deeper after attacking Omar and Mohammed of Iraq the Model. He says:

My allegation that the IraqTheModel website is far outside the norm of Iraqi public opinion as measured by polling has caused a stir in the weblogging world among, apparently, dittoheads who can't read polls.
Well, no, you elipseshead, Cole, that's not what caused the decent and civilized bloggers to call you indecent and uncivilized. It was that you implicated with absolutely no evidence or knowledge whatsoever that these good and honorable men might be propped up by nefarious forces. And since you, Cole, know just how dangerous a place Iraq is -- since that's all you write about, day in and day out -- then you should know that such an implication could be deadly. That, Professor, is what caused a shitstir hereabouts. You have the bad sense to continue:
I drew attention to Martini Republic's questions about the independence of IraqTheModel without actually expressing any opinion myself one way or another, except to say that they are out of the Iraqi mainstream. The dittoheads who read them and can look at the above polling figures and come to a different conclusion are just innumerate (if only they were also so illiterate as to be unable to figure out my email address).
What a crock of Cole crap that is: If I point to a report that Jews were responsible for 9/11 and say nothing to correct or disagree with it, then I'd say I'd be guilty of anti-Semitism and blood libel. That is the ethic of the link. bt pdf converter professional

You can't back away that easily, Cole. You made an unsubstantiated and libelous accusation against these good men and until you apologize, you're not off the hook -- in terms of your responsibility, your credibility, and your morality. bt pdf converter professional

As for the point on polls: I never assumed to speak for all of the people of Iraq (as you apparently do, Cole). First, no one knows enough about what the people say (you think exit polls here are unreliable!). Second, what difference does it make? I want to hear many voices from Iraq. When I wished for blogs to start in Iraq -- and Zeyad answered my wish by blogging and getting these men and many others to blog -- I said that what we needed is "a thousand Salam Paxes," many voices and viewpoints. And that is what we have. I am delighted -- as the Iraqi bloggers have been -- that we have Riverbend next to Iraq the Model next to Healing Iraq and that is growing ... and will grow more now that we have an Arabic-language blogging too. bt pdf converter professional

But, "Professor," look at yourself: You are supported by institutions of the nefarious United States government, aren't you? And you certainly do not represent the American mainstream -- witness the results of the election, just past. So by your own standards, I guess you should be shutting down the blog and refusing all those invitations to be on TV as if you are a spokesman for anything other than your own bile and blather. bt pdf converter professional

I'm not alone dismissing Prof. Pondscum. Judith Weiss does a great job of compiling the return fire. Here's Cathy Siepp. Here's James Taranto pointing out the same tasty irony. The Acerbic Alchemist argues that such a personal attack on another blogger is over the edge. Here's Michael J. Totten. Scroll down for Kaus' comments. Just go read all of Judith's links. bt pdf converter professional

My favorite irony of all this is that no matter how stupid you think the CIA is, even the dumbest spook alive would not take agents to meet the friggin' President of the United States! But such is Cole's conspiracy theorizing. bt pdf converter professional

I repeat: These are good and honorable men who believe in freedom and have the courage to say it. That deserves our support and admiration. Cole deserves every blogbat he can get. bt pdf converter professional

December 15, 2004

soalogo.gifGive until it helps

: There is one day left to the Spirit of America blogger challenge. Please give. bt pdf converter professional

I do not have a tip jar. If I've ever done anything you've ever felt was worth anything, please give. I don't annoy you with ads (yet). That has to be worth something. So please give. bt pdf converter professional

But to hell with me. That has nothing to do with the reason to give. Freedom is the reason to give. Changing the world is the reason to give. Omar, Mohammed, Ali, and Riverbend -- yes, Riverbend and a thousand more voices who will be heard thanks to the Arabic blogging tool this is supporting -- are the reasons to give. bt pdf converter professional

This post is staying on top of the blog through Wednesday night. Please think about what blogs mean to you and about what freedom means to you and what free speech can mean to the Middle East. And please give. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: We've just about doubled the amount given via the team from yesterday to today. Keep it up! Give!bt pdf converter professional

: Kathleen Parker writes as stirring column about Omar and Mohammed and Spirit of America. Read it. Then give. bt pdf converter professional

Change radio

: PaidContent is reporting that NPR is hiring a director of digital media. That's a job that could change radio. Here's how. bt pdf converter professional

The FCC follies

: Just did an interview for ABC Radio on the absurd investigation of alleged indecency in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics (which I blogged here). Today, the NY Post reports that this came because of nine complaints.bt pdf converter professional

I have a fantasy that we're going to find out those nine complaints came from a guerrilla comedy troupe. bt pdf converter professional

: If the so-called Parents Television Council can game the system, why can't the rest of us? bt pdf converter professional

Atrios suggests that we should all complain to the FCC about Rush Limbaugh using the word "dick."bt pdf converter professional

Let's make the FCC head spin (instead of the other way around).bt pdf converter professional

December 14, 2004

Laser test

: Britain is having second thoughts about the laser eye surgery that is all the rage here, now ordering a study of its safety. I'd decided not to have it because I didn't want the risk and didn't know what the long-term impact really is. Besides, I look smarter in glasses, don't I?bt pdf converter professional

The sun sets

: Britain or downgrades European consulates so it can open new outposts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. It's a new world.bt pdf converter professional

LA Times' exorcised

: The Guardian covers the mysterious disappearance of the mysterious LA Times insider blog. bt pdf converter professional

What else should be Googled?

: Following Google's wonderful announcement that it is scanning and making available to us all searchable text from thousands of books at top libraries, I wonder what else you think should be available? I'll start the list:bt pdf converter professional

: Transcripts and scripts of TV shows, movies, and radio shows -- both news and entertainment.
: Periodical archives (at least in an Amazon model, which could drive sales).
: TV listings. OK, that sounds silly, but it is a chronicle of the culture.bt pdf converter professional

What else?bt pdf converter professional

: Just yesterday, as I walked by the New York Public Library, I saw school busses passing and the thought occurred that someday (soon), that building could be seen as either a museum or a public wi-fi hotspot instead of as a storage bin. And a few hours later, Google announced its library project. bt pdf converter professional

On the road again

: Traveling to Washington today to meet with my CIA handlers. Blogging light until after I come out from under the sodium pentathol. bt pdf converter professional

Actually, I'm headed down to join the advisory board of the J-Lab's new project to give seed funding to hyperlocal citizens' media. bt pdf converter professional

You can build freedom: Give!

: The Spirit of America blogger challenge comes to an end at midnight on the 15th. So please, please give here. bt pdf converter professional

Listen, my friends, I'm really rotten at fund-raising (and sales) so you have to make up for my lack of salesmanship. But I know there are hundreds -- thousands -- of you who also believe in the cause of free speech and democracy and who also got some goosebumps when the Iraqi bloggers started telling their stories online. The world needs more of them. bt pdf converter professional

You can help. You can support the Spirit of America Arabic-language blogging tool, which was announced this weekend. You can bring free speech to people in the Middle East who have not had it. bt pdf converter professional

How powerful is that? bt pdf converter professional

Besides, it's end-of-year deducation time. It's the holidays: Give it as a gift. bt pdf converter professional

Give, give, give. Please. bt pdf converter professional

Secretary of Inconsistency

: National Nanny Michael Powell says he doesn't want the FCC to fine stations for airing the F word on Saving Private Ryan. This from the head of the very same FCC that only a few months ago ruled:

We conclude, therefore, that NBC and other licensees that broadcast Bono’s use of the “F-Word” during the live broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards violated 18 U.S.C. § 1464.43 By our action today, broadcasters are on clear notice that, in the future, they will be subject to potential enforcement action for any broadcast of the “F-Word” or a variation thereof in situations such as that here. We also take this opportunity to reiterate our recent admonition (which took place after the behavior at issue here) that serious multiple violations of our indecency rule by broadcasters may well lead to the commencement of license revocation proceedings, and that we may issue forfeitures for each indecent utterance in a particular broadcast.
Couldn't be clearer: Use the F word, get fined, risk losing your license. Unless Michael Powell doesn't feel like it today. Yup, that's how our laws work. bt pdf converter professional

: The San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman says: Write to the FCC and tell them to lay off. bt pdf converter professional

Juan Cole is pond scum

: Prof. Juan Cole libels my freedom-loving friends from Iraq. bt pdf converter professional

The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it. bt pdf converter professional

Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say. bt pdf converter professional

But I had to read him today as he libeled my friends Omar and Mohammed from IraqTheModel. Cole says, quoting another blog:

The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the IraqTheModel site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Look at the domain for the brothers' site: iraqthemodel.blogspot.com. That's Blogspot, owned by Google, you fool. Yes, Google, a well-known front for the capitalist conspircy that is America. bt pdf converter professional

I celebrate the brothers' opinions, too -- because I am an American and because I believe in the cause of freedom and because I support the efforts of people to live in democracy and because I have met them and admire their courage and not because I am "right-leaning" (hell, I appeared on Air America this morning, Prof.). bt pdf converter professional

Cole continues his spiteful idiocy:

Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
OK, Juan, then let's see you invite her to Michigan. Fete her... if you can find her. She doesn't have the guts to identify herself. And he continues:
The phenomenon of blog trolling, and frankly of blog agents provocateurs secretly working for a particular group or goal and deliberately attempting to spread disinformation, is likely to grow in importance. It is a technique made for the well-funded Neoconservatives, for instance, and I have my suspicions about one or two sites out there already.
And what is your proof, Cole? You are downright libeling these people. What is your case? What is your proof? What is your accusation? Out with it!bt pdf converter professional

I know exactly how these men started blogging. I answered an email from their close friend Zeyad and sent him to Blogspot -- that notorious CIA front -- and he got his good friend and fellow dental student, Omar, to get blogging with the rest of his family and they got other people blogging. And thanks to them all, we have more perspectives and information from Iraq, we have the antidote to your hate and pessimism and conspiracy theories and crap, Cole. But you continue:

So far, if you look at the top hundred sites at technorati.com with regard to incoming links, what is striking is how above-board they are.
Well thanks, Cole. I'm one of them.
Is the collective wisdom of the blogging world such as to reduce the dangers here? Is the blogging world actually less open to manipulation than corporate media? Stay tuned.
Make up your mind, Cole: Who's the enemy? Free-thinking Iraqi bloggers? Or the CIA? Or Blogger? Or liberal media? Or free-thinking Iraqi bloggers who happen to disagree with you? Or everyone?bt pdf converter professional

The twit to whom Cole links -- I won't dignify his paranoid crap with a link -- goes on about how the brothers have been interviewed only by right-wing media like The Wall Street Journal. Just one problem with that, fool: They went onto NPR (liberal) radio on Brian Lehrer's WNYC show -- and held their own. And they met with Howard Kurtz of the notoriously liberal Washington Post and they went to Harvard and met with lotsa notorious liberals there and were scheduled to meet with the notoriously liberal LA Times. bt pdf converter professional

: But I don't need to defend these fine men. Their own brother Ali does a very good job of telling Cole and his confederates to go F themselves today.

There were many comments on the blogosphere about this trip, most were applauding and few harshly criticizing and I know that each one has his motivation. In Iraq now there are those who are with the change and those who are against it. Each camp claims to be the majority, but even the polls that many people rely on say that the majority of Iraqis want the elections....bt pdf converter professional

So, back to topic, while the majority of Iraq is facing the little minority's hatred and terrorism on a daily basis and which is reflected in Iraqi blogs by pro and anti-American Iraqi blogs respectively, it was natural (but sad) for some powers inside each one of the two major political societies in America while they are divided as they have never been before, to adopt the perspective of one of the two and try to use their writings as propaganda tools in their struggle for power inside America. I keep telling myself that if we are ever going to lose this struggle for democracy in Iraq it would be the result of partisan conflicts either in Iraq or America.bt pdf converter professional

However, if this means that we are definitely hired by such power on the right then it should mean that anti-American Iraqi bloggers would be very likely hired by some powers on the left. Can anyone agree on this?! I simply refuse both silly assumptions....bt pdf converter professional

Anyway, if you look at the Iraqi blogs you'll find the majority supporting the new Iraq even if complaining about the difficult situation now and then. Only 4 or so are purely anti-American, anti-democracy although they don't admit the later, and such statistics can't be just a coincidence. You can see a detailed list that contains most if not all Iraqi blogs on Iraqi Blog Count and you can do the math if you have the time and judge by yourself....bt pdf converter professional

I've exposed you once Dr. Cole and so I did to you precious Riverbend, but I, and my brothers have great expectations for our country and we spend most of our time trying to make them come true....

: UPDATE: Commenter db adds, quite helpfully, this explanation of the redirected "iraqthemodel.com" domain:
That second, alias domain was registered as a favor to brothers Mohammed, Omar, and Ali by Jeff Reed, who runs a Texas hosting company called CIATech Solutions. The letters "CIA" were cause for suspicion to Joseph of Martini Republic, the author of the post from which Prof Cole spins his insinuations. All this and more is explained in two notes from Jeff Reed that were posted in the comments to the original Martini Republic post at http://martinirepublic.com/item/979 . It turns out the "CIA" in this case stands for Complex Internet Applications.bt pdf converter professional

The irony is that the domain of Riverbend (riverbendblog.com) -- the bitterly anti-American blog by a 20-something Iraqi woman and the blog hailed by Prof Cole as more aligned with prevailing public opinion in Iraq -- was also registered by CIATech.bt pdf converter professional

Juan Cole could have saved himself this bit of baseless paranoia with a simple Whois lookup, and by reading the comments at Martini Republic.

Such is Prof. Cole's intellectual rigor. Remember that as you read his exercises in extreme schadenfreude. bt pdf converter professional
December 13, 2004

Had a ball doing Air America Morning Sedition. More later.bt pdf converter professional

We're only human

: The Bernie Kerik foibles are getting more and more amusing. bt pdf converter professional

This morning, Howard Stern said that he, too, felt the sexual energy from book editor Judith Regan (but they worked in Howard's house when he was married); he wonders whether this happens with all her authors; he fears it happened with Rush Limaugh. bt pdf converter professional

And I do say that heading up Homeland Security, where immigration is really the ball game, while having an immigration problem in your own home is... well, a strike out. Bernie should be gone.bt pdf converter professional

But we also do need to stand back from the glass-houses mode of nomination. Here's the newsflash: We're all human. We all have follies and foibles. If we expect nothing but purity of thought and deed in appointed office, we're going to end up with the dullest people on earth serving us. We're going to end up with Tom Ridge. bt pdf converter professional

On the Air

: I'll be on Air America at 8:30a ET today for what is supposed to become a regular, weekly segment watching the media. bt pdf converter professional

December 12, 2004

An American soldier

: Just got email from a miliblogger asking for a link. Most times, like most bloggers, I pass on that; the links come in the course of conversation. But I looked at this one and I was amazed again at the phenomenon of soldiers sharing their thoughts and feelings -- when did that happen before? -- and at the fact that the Pentagon is wise enough to let them. This soldier is about to head out to Iraq. He writes:

Getting ready for this deployment has made my mind think. These are things that I have stored away for some time now. I have always been the type to just perform a mission and drive on while in Army mode or Civilian mode. As a Sniper you need to have that mentality all the time. That same mentality has carried over into my civilian attitude on things at times. I notice that it comes out when I get super busy and pressured to get things done. I take one thing at a time, knock it out and boom, move on. I am so methodical sometimes that it kills me whenever retrospect kicks in....bt pdf converter professional

[M]y family does not know the exact job I do in the Army except my wife. They know that I have been through some special schools. They don’t really know that their son, nephew, grandson, etc is a Sniper. My job description is pretty simple. I find targets and kill them or make equipment go boom. I am sure they would be proud of me and would accept me but I keep that particular detail from them for now.bt pdf converter professional

I know this for certain; they don’t appreciate this war. They do support the Soldiers though. This I am very happy about. It feels good to have family support with all of this....bt pdf converter professional

I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday Season. Enjoy it like it was you last. Take the moment to call a loved one. Take it from me. The twists and turns of life really put things into perspective at times.


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Airborne

: Traveling back home today and then catching up on the weekend. Blog lite. bt pdf converter professional

Transparency

: The news business demands transparency of the world it covers and now has to learn to be transparent itself. They're not taking to the lesson easily. bt pdf converter professional

After Rathergate, CBS should be opening all its doors and drawers to rebuild its credibility. But RatherBiased.com reports that some execs do not want to release the full investigative report on Rathergate being done now. That' would be numbnutty in the extreme. bt pdf converter professional

And Dan Okrent writes in today's NY Times Public Editor column that Times editors are having problems learning that they should be talking about the paper with the paper's public.

Here's an idea: if the editors did the explaining themselves, maybe I wouldn't have to do it for them.bt pdf converter professional

For decades, the Fraternal Order of Falsely Modest Newspaper People has marched under an indelible banner: "We're not the story," it says. "The story's the story." ...bt pdf converter professional

I suppose the speak-for-itself trope made sense back when the image of the American newspaper was embodied in a freckled newsboy tossing a rolled paper onto a porch hung with geraniums. But in an age when the press is so widely regarded as a predatory and uncontrolled beast, the failure to allow readers a view inside the cage can only aggravate their worst suspicions.

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No sex, please, we're American

: Frank Rich has another good column on the prigs' and prudes' war on sex and popular culture -- and free speech and the First Amendment and the Constitution and democracy, while they're at it.

No matter what the censors may accomplish elsewhere, the pop culture revolution since Kinsey's era is in little jeopardy: in a nation of "Desperate Housewives," "Too Darn Hot" has become the national anthem. A movie like "Kinsey" will do just fine; the more protests, the more publicity and the larger the box office. But if Hollywood will always survive, off-screen Americans are being damaged by the cultural war over sex that is being played out in real life. You see that when struggling kids are denied the same information about sexuality that was kept from their antecedents in the pre-Kinsey era; you see that when pharmacists in more and more states enforce their own "moral values" by refusing to fill women's contraceptive prescriptions and do so with the tacit or official approval of local officials; you see it when basic information that might prevent the spread of lethal diseases is suppressed by the government because it favors political pandering over scientific fact.
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December 11, 2004

The bloggers in the Oval Office

: Omar and Mohammed just told me about their visit to the Oval Office this week. bt pdf converter professional

They said President Bush assured them that we would finish the job this time. bt pdf converter professional

They told the President that they were grateful for their liberation and that the coalition did a great job. bt pdf converter professional

Bush asked them about security in Iraq. They told him that they feel safe now. They talked about hearing the news reports of gigantic explosions in Baghdad, in their city, but they don't hear or see the evidence. It's a big place, Iraq; the brothers keep repeating that. bt pdf converter professional

Bush also went to Omar, as a dentist, and said he wanted him to fix a cavity. bt pdf converter professional

Mohammed said the President understood what blogs are and their importance and they found the staff in the White House views reading blogs as part of their jobs now. The brothers said they were in the White House not just as Iraqi citizens but as representatives of the blogosphere. bt pdf converter professional

: Here's my earlier post about meeting the guys. bt pdf converter professional

The death of lectures

: Lectures (and books and shows and other one-way sharing) are OK if you have something to say. But when you don't, they are torture, all the more so now that we are spoiled by the ability to control and create, whether in weblogs or in Bloggercon-style conversations. Boy has the last two days been the demonstration of that: Yesterday was front-to-back dull; today was a compelling conversation. No fault of yesterday; it was just yesterday, metaphorically, too. Susan Crawford says this isn't just about conferences. It's about classrooms, too. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Wie sagt Man Blog auf Klingon?

: Omar and Mohammed's Friends of Democracy, Jim Hake & Co. of Spirit of America, and iUpload revealed the Arabic blogging tool. I write about that here. Please help support it here. bt pdf converter professional

There's much discussion of language and translation in the international sessions here, of course. Tim Oren just gave a breathtaking VC analysis of the business (which I hope he blogs because I'll butcher it): machine translation is a tiny business ($100 million); manual translation is a huge business; the real value lies in the corpuses (corpi? translation, please) of the same text in multiple languages to teach the machines; that is quite expensive to do; bloggers could help by creating massive corpuses. Joi Ito talks about the amazing handling of multiple languages at Wikipedia and hopes we can learn from them. A wishlist here. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Hoder builds a blogosphere

: Hoder is telling the story of how he planted the seeds to grow the Iranian blogosphere. Many practical notes: Veteran bloggers need to link to new bloggers to give them encouragement and traffic; the bloggers love having hit counters to compete for traffic; the instructions Hoder wrote were extremely thorough (even telling people how to right-click to save a link)....bt pdf converter professional

Hoder says that in repressive countries, it is important to have external hosting so they cannot be blocked. bt pdf converter professional

He urges Google to hurry up localizing its tools into Middle Eastern languages (they are concentrating on European languages and Chinese for revenue reasons). This afternoon, Omar and Mohammed will be showing the new Arabic-language blogging tool they will be promoting.bt pdf converter professional

He says that blogs are very cool in Iraq and when young people date one of the first questions is, Do you have a blog?bt pdf converter professional

There's talk about the social conditions that create fertile ground for blogging; they're different in every land. A blogger who works with Indian and Pakistani bloggers find that the people she knows far prefer social spaces over individual spaces. bt pdf converter professional

Hoder says a sense of individuality is important. bt pdf converter professional

: Charles Nesson of Berkman has a great suggestion: He sees the need to spread the word about blogging and the substance and conversation of what it says and takes Hoder's suggestions about using stars and he wants to find new ways for a center such as Berkman to help and help beyond the internet. So he suggests sponsoring a talk show about blogging and its topics with Hoder on the satellite TV beamed into Iran. Love it. bt pdf converter professional

greek2.jpgFCC vs. scantily clad Greeks and jocks

: NBC has had to hand over a tape of the Greek Olympics opening ceremony because of a complaint. It keeps getting ridiculouser and ridiculouser. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: The world meets

: It's a new day at the Harvard session. I'm sitting here with Omar and Mohammed from Iraq and Hoder from Iran; Jeff Ooi from Maylasia is over there; there are folks from Latvia, Kenya, the Phillippines, China, and India to meet. It's an exciting moment in this world. bt pdf converter professional

Rebecca MacKinnon talks about the gulfs that exist in the world and how media is doing nothing to close them. Ethan Zuckerman talks about the importance of "bridge-blogging" and wonders whether we are becoming a movement. "We are all this together." Amen, neighbor.bt pdf converter professional

The bridges I got to cross with the people just in this room has been incredibly exciting for me. bt pdf converter professional

: Omar is now speaking about what drove him to start the blog: "Mainstream media... and by that, I mean Arabic media." See, the U.S. is not the only place where "mainstream media" has become a bad word.bt pdf converter professional

What he likes about blogs is that it is from people to people, not from institutions. "There are no barriers, no filters." He says comments are "the core of blogs." For those of you in the U.S. who are scared of comments, listen to this blogger.bt pdf converter professional

He tells the story of one of my favorite posts of Omar's, about a cousin who hated Americans; they wrote his story; and the cousin read the comments from around the world, all of them encouraging. "Maybe I don't hate them, but I don't like them," the cousin said. A few weeks later, the cousin's father got a car and the cousin had to admit that would not have happened two years ago. He put up a picture of the young man in the car and the comments made him cry. And Omar almost starts himself as he says: bt pdf converter professional

"If I visited America a year and a half ago, before I started this blog, I feel a stranger." but he does not now. "I am surrounded by friends."bt pdf converter professional

Mohammed now says: "It's from person to person, from heart to heart. I did not have any trouble understanding people thousands of miles away from me in spite of language and distance.... We share many things. Media try to show only the differences between groups and countries but really human beings have many, many things to share.... Here in blogging, I learn from my readers.... I think through blogging we can spread love more than we can spread hate. I started blogging because I saw through the media that they just want to spread hate... I have a different story and many Iraqi people agree with me. bt pdf converter professional

Asked why they called their blog Iraq The Model, they said, "Iraq will be a model for the Middle East region and the world...."
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: Now much discussion ensues on such issues as blogging in native languages and in English and other languages via writing or translation. bt pdf converter professional

: Matt at Blackfive talks about military bloggers. bt pdf converter professional

: Jeff Ooi talks about blogging in Maylasia. A good idea: To create a critical mass, they bring together pings and posts via RSS at PetalingStreet.bt pdf converter professional

The brothers on radio

: Omar and Mohammed were on Brian Lehrer's WYNC show yesterday. You can listen here. "Life under Saddam wasn't living," says Omar. "It wasn't life." They tell him that they are grateful for their liberation and that the stories from the media and the CIA about the state of life in Iraq aren't accurate. Mohammed says he's shocked when Americans ask whether they can go out; it's a big country and much more than Fallujah, they say. bt pdf converter professional

Lehrer notes that they won a conservative "warblogger" award from Right Wing News and asks whether conservatives have their best interests at heart; they say they object to the "warblogger" label. "I am not a warblogger, I am a freedom blogger. That's what I support: the liberation of Iraq. I support freedom in Iraq and in the region. I am not supporting war. But sometimes if war is the only way to liberate people, to free people from tyrants, then I'll support it."bt pdf converter professional

I was a little surprised that Brian cast this in American political terms but he's not alone. Last night, when I told the Wall Street Journal's Dan Henninger that I'd introduced the brothers to Lehrer's show, he said that was a good thing, for liberals need to hear their story. I think Americans should hear their story not for political reasons but for human reasons; we need to Well, I agree, but not because this is right or left but because it is good to make a human connection, American to Iraqi, and the weblogs are now making that possible. bt pdf converter professional

Next, Brian puts it in religious/political terms, mentioning that the brothers are Sunni and asking about Sunni leaders' calls for a boycott of the election. "Let me explain something," Omar said. "First, I'm human. Second, I'm Iraqi. Third, I'm Muslim." Well said.
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December 10, 2004

Oh, those nannies

: Bernie Kerik withdraws from the run for head of homeland security because of a pesky nanny immigration problem. Her boss can't get a cabinet job but at least she can still get a driver's license. bt pdf converter professional

The spread of democracy

: In the Wall Street Journal, Dan Henninger compares the growth of democracy in Ukraine and Iraq and also reports on meeting the blogging brothers behind Iraqthemodel.com.

They made a couple of other interesting points about Iraq's political mood. One, Iraqis won't vote for a government dominated by Islamist religionists. Why? The abhorred next-door example of Iran's mullahs. This mirrors elections already held in Iraq. In a local election last year in Nazariya, with 47,000 votes cast amid imams urging support for Islamic parties, the biggest vote-getters were teachers, engineers and other professionals.bt pdf converter professional

And current party coalitions notwithstanding, the man on the street is sounding cussedly independent. A farmer in Samarra told them: "I will vote for a good man, Shia or Sunni." "We Iraqis don't trust any government now," says Mohammed, though Prime Minister Allawi's public standing rose after he first cleaned up Shiite Najaf, then Sunni Fallujah....bt pdf converter professional

Ukraine is not Iraq. Iraq is not Afghanistan. Or South Africa or Russia for that matter. The voyage to democratic maturity is never the same. Each passage across requires that a people show themselves willing to brave the tumult that precedes self-governance. Whether Ukrainians or Iraqis (or Iranians), all these peoples deserve public support from the nations and people who are already securely moored to the democratic dock.

I just left a local bar with Hoder's bloggers' dinner and Dan himself. More later. bt pdf converter professional

Free speech ain't free anymore

: When Viacom spinelessly settled with the FCC, they agreed to suspend personalities if the FCC filed a complaint against them. I knew this would cause storms in the company. bt pdf converter professional

This morning, Howard Stern says that when they told him he could be suspended or fired if the FCC merely complained (without the slightest due process), he demanded to know what the rules are. "What's the wrong thing?" he asked. "You know what the wrong thing is," the executives said. The FCC, of course, has unconstitutionally vague rules they inconsistently enforce and so no one knows what wrong is. Only some biddy working for King Prig knows, apparently (see the link to the story about Brent Bozell below). bt pdf converter professional

Stern demanded that they who hit the dump button also get suspended or fired. They won't do that. bt pdf converter professional

They told Stern that he should do a show with no mention of sex. bt pdf converter professional

So he said then you're telling me I should play German chamber music. bt pdf converter professional

Well, then, the execs said, then you would not be performing your show the way it should be performed. bt pdf converter professional

Well, said Howard, I can't perform the show the way it should be performed because you and the FCC won't let me.bt pdf converter professional

Welcome to Orwell's world, folks. This is what happens when speech is chilled: Everybody is afraid to say anything so they say nothing.bt pdf converter professional

Tom the general manager comes in and they talk about a particular segment. Tom says it's OK. But Howard says, if the FCC complains, will you suspend or fire me? Well, yes. So Tom said it was OK but if the FCC says it's not OK, Howard takes the fall. "You didn't hit the button and so why am I being suspended or fired?" Howard asks. "Can't answer that," says the boss. Right. "It's not fair. It's not honest. It's wrong," Howard says. bt pdf converter professional

Yes, Orwell's in charge now.bt pdf converter professional

Fuck the FCC. bt pdf converter professional

How long will it be before I'm fined for saying that?bt pdf converter professional

: CNN's report here.
: Stern says he doesn't want to leave Viacom early. Viacom says, publicly, they don't want him to go early. But if he is at risk, he'll play music. Then Viacom will say that's not his show. Then negotiations will begin. And now Sirius now says they'd take Stern early. Here, Viacom says they are "feverishly" looking for a replacement. bt pdf converter professional

File-sharing fight to the top

: The Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case about whether file-sharing services (Grokster, Streamcast) can be held liable for no-no downloading. bt pdf converter professional

Blogged out

: Yes, you wondered when that day would come and it has: I'm blogged out (but just for this afternoon). I was liveblogging the Harvard session but I saw it wasn't yielding much new or interesting and so I'm stopping until tomorrow, when the sessions are supposed to be less about lectures from the front of the room and more about discussions around the room. My biggest lesson today is about the form of forums. A panel sitting there going down the line for sound downloads -- the time-honored format for these things, of course -- just isn't interesting or effective unless you're in a room where the people on the stage are all smarter than the people in the audience. That's not the case here or in most industry forums I attend. The right way to do these things is the Bloggercon way and the art of that is harvesting the wisdom of the crowd. bt pdf converter professional

Oh, those silly Jews

: The other night, I blogged the appalling Scarborough (Buchanan) Country on MSNBC with rampant anti-semitism. The transcript is now up. Here's the quote Andrew Sullivan picked out:

"Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah. Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common." - Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League
A big believer in restraint, you are, Billy. What was more frightening was the Pat Buchanan did not try to contain him; he cheered. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Scott Heiferman & Meetup

: Meetup has been a star of this conference, discovered by all. Scott Heiferman tries to deflate the hype a little; humility.com. bt pdf converter professional

Meetup is 15 percent politics vs. 30 percent a year go. The new version of the site has doubled the activity of meetups. That new structure moved to having organizers out there in the world. bt pdf converter professional

I always like Scott's pictures: The NYC Ukelele meetup ("it's ok, you can laugh, they're not here"). More: the fight human trafficking meetup, Atlanta Hungarian language meetup (there are meetups for most major languages in most major cities), knitting meetups, South Jersey Department of Peace, Townhall (it's not just liberals), female bikers, stay at home moms (a fast growing grouping), expat Indians in Frankfurt, and, of course, pugs. Former Dean people still meetup (to cry ... or scream, I guess). bt pdf converter professional

What it's all about is about power, having a voice, pride, he says.
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Scott says Meetup came about because he read Bowling Alone (and its author, Robert Putnam, is up next). bt pdf converter professional

He lists ways you can avoid talking to someone: Jetblue, iPod, Bose, FreshDirect, ATMs, cars. bt pdf converter professional

Scott points to Meetupsurveys.com as a source of surveys about these folks. bt pdf converter professional

The biggest revenue source for Meetup is people paying for the privilege of emailing directly on the site. So the allegiance, he says, is to people and not to sponsors. Some of the Meetups charge dues/admission for their own gettogethers. bt pdf converter professional

There are workers using Meetup to organize at the same time that Scott shows quotes from union officials recognizing that union structure is outmoded. bt pdf converter professional

You dont' need fancy buildings in DC to be an association anymore, he says. Associations, too, are distributed. The net disrupts and distributes. bt pdf converter professional

What is emerging, he says, is "flash, emergent, people-powered, long-lasting, open, influential, agile, chapter-based, institutions/organizations/unions/associations with card-carrying members that engage in collective action."bt pdf converter professional

This is the napsterization of organization. But it's really just old-fashioned face-to-face meetings.bt pdf converter professional

What's the internet good for? It gives people more power to know anything, sell anything, publish, communicate better, be more efficient... and have collective power ("and we haven't scratched the surface yet").bt pdf converter professional

"People are watching Big Bro, too." Case in point: Abu Ghraib.bt pdf converter professional

The dynamic due of people able to publish and organize gives voice. bt pdf converter professional

He's nice enough to quote my first law of media (and life): Bet on that which gives citizens control.bt pdf converter professional

This is not just about changing the world but saving the world, he says.bt pdf converter professional

This is all about the democratication of democracy. bt pdf converter professional

: Now Robert Putnum responds. He says "the master trend of the 20th century was the privitization of leisure time by technology." It used to be you could enjoy music only together; now technology allows you to listen alone. bt pdf converter professional

Yes, but I wonder whether this isn't a bell curve. I was just talking with someone about trends in TV and said the grand shared experience of TV we too often celebrate was short-lived and that today's choice and fragmentation really mean choice and power. That's a push-pull: More power sometimes means more fragmentation but fragmentation also allows you to meet people you enjoy through things like Meetup: You're not just a dog owner now but you're a pug association member. bt pdf converter professional

Putnum says the debate about whether virtual community was real community was a misleading, wasted debate. It's much more interesting to see how the internet can blend communities between virtual and real.bt pdf converter professional

Now he switches gears to talk about the emergence of large evangelical churches, "by far the best organized part of American civil society." See: Brent Bozell. He talks about a church run by Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Drive Life, with 30,000 members. He talks about the church: an open structure you can wander into or not; a Starbucks-like cafe where you can sip coffee and watch the service or not. But belonging to the church doesn't mean going to large services but belonging to one of thousands of small groups: geeks for God, mountain bikers for God, and on and on. bt pdf converter professional

Even this is fragmented. Even this is niches. But the niches together make the mass.bt pdf converter professional

The mass market is dead, I say. Welcome to the mass of niches. bt pdf converter professional

And the niche is supported by social capital -- by people agreeing with each other, liking each other, supporting each other, working with each other. bt pdf converter professional

And that social capital has to build. So people who want to dance around that huge church go have coffee and check it out. People who want to join a group go to a Meetup and check it out. The niche gathers its gravity that way. bt pdf converter professional

: I ask a very confused circular question about much of that and the professor makes point of it and says there are two kinds of social capital: bonding (people like us) and bridging (people not like us). Places with high bonding look like Bosnia or Belfast. Bridging, then, is about diversity. Bonding is about support. Neither is good or bad, then, but our challenge is to come up with more bridging experiences. And Meetup does that by bringing together surprisingly diverse groups (so a pug owner finds that a fellow pug owner voted for Bush and he's not the devil). He says that the risk is that the internet will provide mostly bonding capital (the echo chamber argument); I will argue that the internet is proven to build bridges (see Meetup, see friendships with Iraqi bloggers). bt pdf converter professional

: A student at "the college" (as they call it) asks whether the democratic extreme of this looks like California propositions with every cause emerging. "How do you maintain a republic?" he asks. It's a good question and I'm not sure we know the answer yet. bt pdf converter professional

: Chris Lydon asks Scott to explain Dean in Iowa. "I cannot sit in a Harvard Law School auditorium and hypothesize about anything," Scott says. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Business

: Tod Cohen, VP of eBay, which is sponsoring this gettogether (thank you, eBay) talks about eBay and politics. He reads from a "values card" employees get. "We believe people are basically good... We believe everyone has something to contribute...."bt pdf converter professional

Esther Dyson says of her time as head of ICANN, "we learn a lot more from mistakes and I learned a great deal there." She says in business, the internet means "you can get rid of the customers you don't like." That's the snarky way to say "targeting." Government, of course, can't do that. It can't segment markets. In politics, you can target but you always want to expand that target market and what the Dean and Kerry campaigns did wrong, she says, is that they did not expand their target markets. In the election, she saw the internet used too much to broadcast. "The internet should be used as a listening tool," She's brief and damned well to the point. bt pdf converter professional

(In the break, I pulled Dave Winer over and congratulated him for breaking this form of conference: people lecturing from podium to audience. He beamed.)bt pdf converter professional

I'm putting the rest of this post below the "more" link because this isn't not making for a very interesting post. bt pdf converter professional

A Harvard Business School prof, Debora Spar, gives a rather obvious primer in the recent history of internet businesses. She has nothing new to say. bt pdf converter professional

Esther, bless 'er, says it does make a difference in society when people feel empowered in one sphere.bt pdf converter professional


Now Craig Newmark talks. He says his intro left the fact that he grew up with a pocket protector and taped glasses and that's relevant to the way his company runs. bt pdf converter professional

"I'm going to ignore such matters as business plan and business model, largely because we have neither." He says that instinct and experience are more reliable than planning. bt pdf converter professional

"What we're learning running Craig's list is that people are overwhelmingly trustworthy." That is the democratic view of the world. bt pdf converter professional

He talks about nerd values: Once you make some money, you want to change the world. "And it gets me out of the house."bt pdf converter professional

"What's working for us is that we seem to be run by what I heard in a Woody Allen movie is called a moral compass. We're trying to do what's right for people... The community drives us.... We're pious about it. We're just trying to be real about it." So when they asked about charging, the people told them to charge for services people are paying too much for elsewhere.bt pdf converter professional

"The Golden Rule really is how people want to operate how people want to be." People want to respect each other and be respected. "Nothing fancy there. Just about being fair and leveling the playing field... What I think people expect from us is righteous behavior." bt pdf converter professional

What he's saying should be but too often is not obvious: Good values yield good value. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Hoder speaks

: Hoder now speaks to the group and at last gets recognition. "He began a blog but he began a phenomenon," says Nesson. bt pdf converter professional

He begins with some facts about Iranian society and the internet. Out of Iran's 70 million people, 70 percent are under age 30. He says there are 75,000 active Iranian weblogs in Persian. (I had been quoting higher numbers; probably included inactives over three years.)bt pdf converter professional

"The internet in Iran is now the most trusted medium among Iranians... (versus) even satellite TV."bt pdf converter professional

He says that elsewhere, the internet came first and then blogs; in Iran, blogs came first and showed Iranians how great the internet is as a medium. bt pdf converter professional

"The internet is not having a real large impact on politics in Iran right now." There are no parties, no free press, "and maybe it's not the time." It's more about social and cultural change, "which could be translated into political change in a few years."bt pdf converter professional

He sees blogs as windows: people can see inside Iran and vice versa. We can see how profoundly the young Iranian people have changed in terms of self-expression and tolerance. bt pdf converter professional

And he sees blogs as bridges, which is particularly important in a developing nation. "Blogs in particular are making bridges between genders, which may be the first time that is happening in Iran." Women, for the first time, are "free to epress themselves... about how they see the world." It also creates a bridge between generations as parents read children's blogs -- and he says that's a global thing. And there is a bridge building between voters and polticians in Iran. bt pdf converter professional

He tells about the former vice-president of Iran as a blogger. When we saw Hoder in Toronto, he shows pictures of cabinet meetings moblogged by the VP. "He has repeatedly said that this is the best tool with which Iranian officials can see what is going in in the people's minds, in the younger generations... Some female bloggers have even been invited to some official ceremonies as representatives of young people."bt pdf converter professional

The hardline religious people have blogs, too. "For the first time you can see what's really going on in their minds."bt pdf converter professional

His third metaphor: Blogs as cafes. "The government has a total monopoly on Iranian media.... So discourse or debates about important topics like the nuclear program or the relationship with Israel... is not even talked about. It is a red line you cannot cross and if you cross it you will go to jail. It's very serious."bt pdf converter professional

"Blogs are the only open window where people can talk and have a debate." He quotes a famous reformist who says blogs have replaced taxi talks. This was something Hoder taught me: Iranians like to argue and do it in cabs.bt pdf converter professional

Hoder said the American election was a big topic of conversation and surprisingly, many liked Bush, perhaps because the government doesn't like him. bt pdf converter professional

What's next? "They're preparing the ground for the real and effective change in Iran in the next, maybe, couple of years." The other sign that it is effective is that it has made the hardliners so frustrated that they cannot control it, they have started a huge crackdown and Iranians cannot get to any political web sites. He tells of an editor at a major paper who wrote up a conspiracy theory that all blogs are funded by the CIA. And, of course, the authorities have been arresting bloggers. bt pdf converter professional

I ask Hoder what the world can do to help. He says they need technology and education. Young people in Iran have not seen elections, for example. For technology they need tools that are localized; Blogger.com is a great service and a great opportunity, he says, but it needs to be translated. The services in Iran have poltiical difficulties. He adds that getting internet access is vital. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: voting and citizenship

: Charles Ogletree gives a good introduction to the topics the conference will cover (good but not terribly bloggable, since it's a summary). One key issue for us today, for the world today is whether votes really count and whether we, the people, trust those who count our votes.
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: Charles Nesson, founder of the Berkman Center (bless 'im) runs the next panel. Tom Sander, of the Kennedy School of Government, presents a study of Meetup.com.bt pdf converter professional

Three brief conclusions: They think that Meetup.com is succeeding in building social ties. They think that this is happening among different users than expected. And political meetups are rare birds among Meetups; political meetups would do better focusing on social ties. They hold to the view of Robert "Bowling Alone" Putnam that social connections are worse than they were -- and, no, that's not the fault of technology; it started "when Bill Gates was in diapers." So they see Meetup as a promising technology to create social capital even among strangers.bt pdf converter professional

Conclusions:
Meetup is not a young person's phenomenon. (Last night, we heard that the average of of Dean Meetuppers was 47.)
Meetup is "not engaging the civically disengaged." Meetup participants are more educated that the population (no surprise on a few levels: internet and computer use and the high degree of political activism at the time of the study).
Meetup is not disproportionately attracting newcomers; "only sometimes was it strangers meeting strangers." (Again, no surprise; it takes a friend to bring a friend; no one wants to go where no one knows them.)
They found "low member stickiness." (I continue to not be surprised; I've seen such gettogethers where people come out and try but joining a group is still -- and always has been -- a high hurdle.)
They say there is a "left-leaning tilt" to Meetups. (Well, hell, Dean was the one who promoted it; Bush did not.)
Yet, he says, Meetup has success at building social capital. They found that people made new personal friends at Meetups. (Well, if it happens at bars, it can happen at Meetups.)
Later, Micah Sifry properly points out the ways in which the timing of the research makes it anamolous. bt pdf converter professional

(He's essentially reading findings in a paper. Boy, I'm spoiled by Bloggercons: No speeches, conversation. I'm not used to presentations anymore.)bt pdf converter professional

Pippa Norris, also from Kennedy, talks about whether technology -- that is, evoting -- will boost turnout. They studied evoting vs. postal ballots. Postal won. The PDF of all her results is here, so I won't butcher them with fast typing. bt pdf converter professional

(I blogged Hoder's talk above.)bt pdf converter professional

Nesson says he hears a pessimism about technology and voting and a prof in the crowd says he hears issues about trust and technology. The problem is that this is not a comprehensive view of technology and voting and poltics; it's a smattering of three small topics and it's not the basis for grand conclusions. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Thank you

: The Harvard Internet & Society session is beginning and so I want to take a moment to thank Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center and John Palfrey for holding this -- and the prior Bloggercons. No university in the nation has done more for citizens' media than these folks. bt pdf converter professional

(I also need to thank them for letting me online. Because of university politics, it was going to be difficult to get online. I threw a rude hissy fit and they got me online. So I'll be blogging the event.)bt pdf converter professional

: IRC: Joi Ito, of course, has an IRC channel set up at Freenode. #harvardbits. bt pdf converter professional

Just listen

: Jay Rosen tells CBS what they should do next: Listen.

Before they decide who gets the anchor chair, or what happens with CBS News, they could engage in an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, national act of public listening, where the entire divison, CBS News, just listens to Americans state their views about broadcast news. Lots of Americans, lots of views, lots of time to hear about all sides of the problem.bt pdf converter professional

Maybe it's a tour of America: CBS comes to you. There's a public forum in every stop on the tour. Listening week. Instead of the Big Eye, symbol of CBS News, the Big Roving Ear.

But, of course, I doubt that they'll listen about listening. bt pdf converter professional

Recapturing Islam

: The New York Times reports today on Islamic scholars trying to recapture their religion -- at last -- from terrorists and murderers. bt pdf converter professional

Meet your censor

: The Washington Post went into the bowels of the Parents Television Council to meet the censors who sit there watching TV all day so they can try to decide what you should not watch. You see, this isn't at all about Americans outraged at smut. That's a fraud. This is about Brent Bozell's agenda to censor our free speech. bt pdf converter professional

: Separately, see David Weinberger joining in the conversation about the FCC. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: The world meets

: There will come a moment today when the world meets in Cambridge as the pioneers of citizens' media come together: Hoder is in America (at long last!). Maylasian blogger Jeff Ooi is here. Oh Yeon-ho, the founder of OhMyNews, the people's news service that is changing South Korea, is talking. Omar and Mohamed from IraqTheModel are coming this afternoon. Add to that Ethan Zuckerman and his work in Africa and Joi Ito and his work around the globe and all the Americans and you have all the veggies you need for one helluva great global succotash. bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: Beggar at the feast

: Last night after the opening event at Berkman's internet-and-society confab, I crashed the official dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club, where you'll find the smartest cocktail chatter anywhere. bt pdf converter professional

I was delighted to find myself sitting next to Craig Newmark, customer service representative and founder of Craig's List. I saw Craig at Web 2.0 and so when I ran into him in the lobby of Time Inc. by the slimmest of coincidences a few weeks ago, I knew he looked familar and so I gave him that don't-we-know-each-other look. He shrugged it off and said, "I run a web site." Oh, yes, that web site, I said; you're Craig. He shrugged again: Yup. bt pdf converter professional

Merrill Brown told me a great story a day later about being with Craig when they saw they were in the same building as a New York real estate agent Craig has had to deal with. Craig just went into their offices: "I'm Craig." People got excited and got their cameras out to take pictures with the most unassuming celebrity in America. And then Criag straightened them out. bt pdf converter professional

Last night, I got to say to Craig what I often say about him: He is disrupting the news business more than any other person. And that's not a bad thing, I'm quick to add. The newspaper business is seeing a lot of classified revenue shift to Monster and Craig's List and other new marketplaces (which I contend will, in turn, be replaced by the unmarketplace, the distributed market, but that's a subject for another dinner). And that is hard to take, of course. But whenever any industry goes through disruption for any reason, good things can come out of it. As Kathleen Matthews said about politics last night, when you face change, you can try not to or you can blow it up (she said it better than that). bt pdf converter professional

Craig talked about the desire to get and support news he trusts. bt pdf converter professional

That inspired a great conversation with Jay Rosen on one side of us and Rebecca MacKinnon on the other. Jay said that there should be a marketplace where citizens can buy the journalism they want to see -- what Chris Albritton did getting his audience to underwrite his trips to Iraq brought to a larger scale. Jay said that in the earliest days of journalism, rich people hired correspondents to go to far away lands and tell them what they needed to know about, oh, camel futures. Of course, that was private news. This new way is about public news. It is about the public getting the news it wants thanks to a direct way join up with others to support it. bt pdf converter professional

What stories would you underwrite?bt pdf converter professional

: See Steve Rubel's speculation about this. bt pdf converter professional

The news is out

: Dan Gillmor is leaving his column to create a venture in citizens' media. Dan has the courage and vision to not just talk about this movement (like somebody you know) but to do it. Watch out for what comes next. bt pdf converter professional

December 09, 2004

My Iraqi friends

: While I was in Washington yesterday, I got to meet Omar and Mohamed, the blogging brothers behind IraqTheModel.com, and I can't tell you what a wonderful moment it was. It was magical, even miraculous. For this could never have happened in a world without the internet and citizens' media. bt pdf converter professional

How in the world, before this, could I ever have become friends with two men on the other side of the world in a war zone where our soldiers are fighting? How could I have learned about their lives in the midst of that battlefield? How could we have made mutual friends -- Zeyad, Kerry Dupont, Jim Hake? How could such a group have ended up working together, though thousands of miles apart, on a project to bring this new medium to the rest of the world? (Omar translated the Arabic blogging tool, by the way.)bt pdf converter professional

I stand in awe of all that. But I also stand in awe of these two men. They have tremendous courage doing what they are doing: They grab onto free speech like men dying of thirst who finally come upon the oasis. They use their free speech with a gusto we should all admire and aspire to. They use it improve their nation and their future. bt pdf converter professional

And it does take courage to do what they do. There are terrorists lurking around the corner of every word today. But these brothers keep doing what they are doing. And they come here to share their story with us. They are meeting with reporters and with others.bt pdf converter professional

Among the things they said last night: bt pdf converter professional

"We are trying to bridge the gap between Iraq and the world," Omar said. "Iraqis are grateful for what Amreica did. Iraqis are grateful for the liberation of Iraq... They feel like they are not alone in their struggle."bt pdf converter professional

Mohamed said that his countrymen "had lived in the dark for 35 years." With their blog, he said, they get to "show the world a different story that they cannot see in the media." bt pdf converter professional

He added: "I am free and I am enjoying my freedom."bt pdf converter professional

As I said, they grasp freedom with a enthusiasm that can only be admired. bt pdf converter professional

But you shouldn't think that they are saying all this from high up on a pulpit. They are two very unassuming guys who seem to take everything in stride; I guess that's the only way to stay sane in a dictatorship and in wars. They're enjoying America but they don't seem overwhelmed by it. They don't act as if they are changing the world, even though they are.bt pdf converter professional

But for them and for me, what was so special last night was simply that we were friends meeting at last. Over an incredible distance and difference in culture and background and language, weblogs let us get to know and like and respect each other. And that is a wonderful thing. But what's most wonderful is that these are not just my Iraqi friends. They are your Iraqi friends, too. bt pdf converter professional

I'll be seeing them again in Cambridge this weekend and I'm eager for them to meet their fellow pioneer in citizens' media, Hossein Derakhshan, and others. We won't all agree about politics or other views. But we all share a bond -- and, no, I don't mean the bond of blogs. I mean the bond of friendship.
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Soldiers as news agents

: Drudge says an embedded reporter coached the soldiers who met with Rumsfeld yesterday and planted the question about GIs having to dig through dumps to find metal to armor their vehicles. What do we think of that? On the one hand, it's a reporter using a soldier behind the scenes. On the other hand, judging by the reaction to the question (which sounded enthusiastic), it seems the point is legit. On the other other hand, if the reporter hadn't coached the soldier would the question have been asked and would the story today be that soldiers gave Rumsfeld hell..... bt pdf converter professional

Wi-fi question

: I'm sitting in my hotel room with my neat Apple thingie connected to the hotel network so I can operate wirelessly in the room. And it's great. Except that frequently, my laptop decides to hook onto one of the other stray wi-fi signals around. I go into the advance properties and take them all off my preferred list. Still happens. Any way, you experts out there, that I can have my laptop (a Viao with XP) lock onto the Apple thingie and not have affairs with other signals?bt pdf converter professional

Harvard: The start

: I'm at the evening forum at Harvard's Kennedy School beginning the three-day confab on the internet and politics at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center. Kathleen Matthews is moderating with Joe Trippi of the Dean campaign and Michael Turk of the Bush campaign. bt pdf converter professional

(It's like Bloggercon 3.5 here; the room is filled with lots of online friends. Hoder is in the U.S. at last! Scott Heiferman is next to me. Jay Rosen's over there. Dr. Weinberger is ahead. Stowe Boyd and Chris Lydon are nearby. And on and on.)bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen asks people to speak in "blogspeak," in TV sound bites. She hasn't read Rosen!bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen says we'll ask whether the net will be able to beat Karl Rove.bt pdf converter professional

After the usual obvious introductions (the internet is the most important development since the printing press...) Trippi says the real question about the campaign was whether people would get out from behind the screen and meet people. And they did. "It's about Americans having faith in strangers again... There's a community of trust that builds on the internet." Yes, trust is the organizing principle of the internet; trust is the value is builds. bt pdf converter professional

Joe says they started with 432 people wanted to meet up from all around the country and ended up with 192,000 people meeting up. Scott, Mr. Meetup, nods next to me. An idea that came from the Meetup was adding $.01 to the end of every contribution so they'd know it came from Meetupers. bt pdf converter professional

When the campaign took on ideas from the people "they knew they'd had an impact on the campaign." Yes, that's another key factor in the internet: impact. bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen asks, wasn't the Dean campaign anarchy? No (I believe), that assumes there was control of everything from the people. There were contributions, but not control. bt pdf converter professional

Michael says no kind of candidate is necessarily advantaged on the internet but he adds that there were fun viral things, like cartoons, that his campaign couldn't do because it wouldn't have been dignified for a sitting President. bt pdf converter professional

Joe says transparency brought perils: They put up lists of names of undecided voters online for their supporters to write letters but the Kerry and Clark campaign quickly found those lists and downloaded them to do likewise. bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen asks why the Dean organization failed in Iowa. Joe blames it on the governor dissing caucuses (that lost them 10 poll points) and telling a 79-year-old man to sit down so he could speak (there went another 5 points). Joe confesses his own mistake saying on Crossfire, when asked whether Carter will endorse, "come on down to Plains, Ga., to find out," and he doesn't know why he says it because he knew Carter would not endorse them. He says the "campaign made errors that just devoured our support."bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen says the man who created commercials for the Bush campaign was at Harvard and said his job will be eliminated soon, replaced by the internet. Michael argues that video will still be compelling to get campaign messages across; the delivery may simply shift. bt pdf converter professional

Asked what will happen in four years, Trippi looks back at the things McCain could not do four years before (Meetup, localizers, blogs) and so you can assume that the changes four years from now can't be guessed. bt pdf converter professional

Joe says they decided to run a 24-hour campaign TV network online before they knew what would fill it and the people started supplying video. Citizens' media: Give the people the tools and the distribution and they will use them (I smell another law of media coming on....)bt pdf converter professional

Michael wonders what is going to happen to the journalism covering campaigns with blogs and RSS: "You sort of create your own media."bt pdf converter professional

Joe adds: "Email will be supplanted by RSS feeds as the choice for the average consumer or voter to take information from the campaigns.... I think the blogosphere is here to stay.... The problem is that the press keeps looking at the blogs that get huge traffic." Amen. It's the tail, it's the tail. Calling Dr. Shirky. bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen mentions Rathergate and asks what will happen to the credibility of blogs vs. media. Michael says, "I think you're going to see a lot more stories like that.... The depth of experience you see represented in those blogs is just amazing." bt pdf converter professional

Kathleen asks about the danger of spreading misinformation and it not getting corrected for days. Nope, online it takes only minutes. It took bloggers 18.5 minutes to correct Rather; it took Rather 12 days to correct Rather (sort of). "The average blogger gets called on it immediately." bt pdf converter professional

I ask about the impact of all this at a local level. Joe says there are a bunch of 22 year-olds in these campaigns who will be in Congress in eight years. "The net got them involved when they woulodn't have gotten involved otherwise." He says he's seeing local campaigns realizing that they can get people involved in campaigns again, "which is important for democxracy."bt pdf converter professional

"My fantasy of President Kerry [beat for laughter] is of a man who actually sent his health care paln to the people online... 'I'm sending it to you before I send it to the Hill... I want you to talk about it... It's up to you to stop the lobbyists....' I think you're doing to see this have an effect on governance and you'll see that have an effect on the local elevel before you see it at te national level."bt pdf converter professional

Michael adds that people have been questioning the ongoing role of parties, what with campaign finance reform. "A lot of the tools that we built on the presidential site were very expensive tools and were very much out of reach... One of the things the parties can do is build an infrastructure for their candidates." Right idea. bt pdf converter professional

A student asks a question about media and Kathleen says "in any given newsroom now, people are reading blogs." She says they have an impact on news.bt pdf converter professional

Joe argues that during the war, embedded reporters gave us "one flavor" of coverage and blogs were the alternative. And he says that the beauty of the exit polls being blogged is that TV is in the eyeball business but those eyeballs were at Wonkette. He says they can't do exit polls anymore and leak them to the campaigns. "Karl Rove will call Drudge and I'll call Wonkette," he says. bt pdf converter professional

Trippi says "the one thing most Americans agree on is that they don't like Washington... And the Democratic party has become identified as the Washington party."bt pdf converter professional

"We have to reform the party from the ground up... aw, I don't want to get on my soapbox," Joe says. bt pdf converter professional

Trippi says that the Democrats "should not have some big name as the party chair." I guess he's not endorsing Dean. Sounds like news to me. bt pdf converter professional

Michael asks Joe about Wolfson's suggestion that the party members elect the chairman online. Trippi says he's not sure that's the right way but it would be better than the way it is going to be decided. bt pdf converter professional

Trippi soundbite: "If you think about the internet as the information age, it's a mistake. It's the age of empowerment." Trippi's law. bt pdf converter professional

He tells political loaves-and-fishes stories about expecting hundreds of people at an event and getting thousands because a few of those people told more people. A lot of them did not have internet access (an answer to the PC digital divide question).bt pdf converter professional

Joe punctures the youth myth of the Dean campaign. Scott Heiferman reported that the average age of Dean Meetup people was 47. bt pdf converter professional

Jay Rosen gets up to talk about the different narrative -- not horseraces of winners and losers but forces of control vs. decontrol, a war in the party. He says there are all these people in parties who control message, money, news. "If the internet is really going to decontrol politics and messages, then what happens to this class?" Michael says the media story about Bush was that the campaign was all about control but he says that was not the feeling internally. He says there are people who don't want to be part of a communal structure but want to be involved. Scott, next to me, says, "That's so sad.... Isolation leads to distrust."bt pdf converter professional

Joe: "There's a reason the country's so divided. And that's because the consulting class of both parties are so good at one thing... getting 50.1.... Both consulting classes have gotten exceptionally good at getting at that 50.1 percent number, not 80..." He says that before this era, if you wanted to go outside the party structure and control, there was nowhere to go. Now there is. He says that one party, probably the Democrats, will go the way of the Whigs. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: Props to Kathleen Matthews for her moderation of the event. I was particularly impressed because it was only this summer at the Aspen Institute when she said she didn't really know blogs yet. Well, she certainly has done her reporting in the meantime and knows what all this means. bt pdf converter professional

Heh

: King Prig Brent Bozell is acting like the trapped weasel he is. bt pdf converter professional

Mediawatch: Help, please

: Monday at 8:30am, I'm to appear on Air America for what is supposed to become a weekly mediawatch segment, talking about the stories that got too little and too much coverage (and, yes, you know me, I won't be following party lines; I'll draw my own). bt pdf converter professional

I want your help: Tell me here what stories you think got too little coverage and too much (Scott's trial is already Hall of Fame in that category). And please do leave links to those stories. Thanks, partners. bt pdf converter professional

The world changes in a click

: I saw the world change last night.bt pdf converter professional

Spirit of America showed its new Arabic-language blogging tool at a reception in Washington. bt pdf converter professional

soalogo.gifI have been hoping, dreaming, cajoling, and begging for this for more than a year, since I first met Hossein Derakhshan online and saw the blogging revolution he started in Iran and since I met, also online, brave Iraqi bloggers Zeyad and then Omar and Mohamed and others and read the stories of their true lives they brought to the world. bt pdf converter professional

I believed that a tool of citizens' media in the languages of the citizens would free them to tell their stories to each other and the world and dethrone the tyrants who have tried to silence them. Now it begins.bt pdf converter professional

Spirit of America -- Jim Hake, Kerry Dupont, Janice Abrahams, and some brave people in Iraq (more on them later) -- made it happen. This weekend at Rebecca MacKinnon's international blogging confab at Harvard, they'll unveil this tool, but I got to see it tonight. bt pdf converter professional

And though I could not, of course, understand a single word, a single letter on the pages, I saw pixels that looked as beautiful to me as the graceful, courageous, ancient script on the Declaration of Independence. bt pdf converter professional

With this tool, citizens throughout the Middle East will be able to declare their independence. They will be able to build bridges to fellow citizens in other parts of the world -- just as the Iraqi and Iranian bloggers have been able to do (allowing you and me to meet and make friends in a way that never could have happened without this). They will be able to tell the truth in ways that media cannot and their leaders will not. bt pdf converter professional

Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz came to tonight's reception, along with some members of Congress. I thanked Wolfowitz for reading blogs from Iraq and quoting them in columns and drawing attention to their messages in the halls of power. Then I asked him whether they are making a difference. "Yes, but not as much as they deserve to," he said. bt pdf converter professional

He told of reading a blog that reported on religous organizations that were really just fronts for Saddam and how he did not see this same coming from U.S. intelligence for too long. bt pdf converter professional

Later, I said that the same is true in media. I told him the story of the antiterrorism demonstrations that Zeyad, Omar, and Mohamed covered that The New York Times did not cover.bt pdf converter professional

The priesthoods of information are being upset, I said. We agreed that this is a good thing. bt pdf converter professional

Secretary Wolfowitz said that citizens' blogs in Iraq are helping. "Things that every Iraqi knows, Americans have to learn for the first time through the barriers of the Green Zone," he said. He said that not only has he quoted blogs and learned intelligence from them, but he "got a lot of mileage in Congress" out of blogs stories of religious women's objections to efforts to impose religous law in Iraq a few months ago. He is grateful for what the bloggers are telling us and he is grateful for their courage. bt pdf converter professional

And, by the way, Wolfowitz himself reads blogs, he and his staff members made clear. He regularly sends them links to what he has learned online. (And, by the way, I enjoyed meeting him.) bt pdf converter professional

When I asked that question about blogs, I mentioned the blogs in Iran and Rep. Darrell Issa of California was amazed that there were blogs there. I told him the story of Hoder and the blogging revolution and he remained amazed. "I missed that briefing," he said. No, Congressman, you just got the briefing, I told him. bt pdf converter professional

They see how these tools will change the world. But you already had that briefing, didn't you?bt pdf converter professional

All of this is not just a plug for contributing to this cause and helping bring the Arabic blogging tool to Arabic lands. But it is also a plug. So please give to the cause here. Help some brave people change the world. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: Judith rounds up other reports here. bt pdf converter professional

Speak for yourself

: Ross Mayfield says bloggers are pulling punches -- and then he pulls punches by not naming names. I don't see it. And I certainly don't feel as if I pull punches here (hell, just look at the people I piss off).bt pdf converter professional

Watch out for the guys in ties when you poison the food

: Some notably doofus behavior from some of our lesser leaders lately: First, a cabinet secretary stands up before the press and helpfully tells terrorists he can't believe they haven't attacked our food supply because it'd be so easy. And now here's a boss of the air marshals who hide in plain sight to keep us safe on jets (thank you guy!) going after them for not wearing suits and ties at all times, even on Thanksgiving. Jeesh. So when you want to take out the air marshal on the flight you're turning into a bomb, get the guys in ties (there aren't many these days). I've seen what I assume to be marshals only because they were going around security and they had the look of undercover cops; I was delighted to realize then that I'd never pick them out of a crowd. That is the idea, doofus. They're supposed to blend in. So cancel that order for the spiffy Air Marshal uniforms, willya?bt pdf converter professional

Hyperlocal gets some hype

: Leslie Walker writes in today's Washington Post business section about folks trying to make a go of hyperlocal citizens' media (including great work in Bakersfield, some efforts at my day job, and a new company called Backfence).

Several notable ventures have launched or raised money this year to create local news sites online in which readers contribute all or most of the news. The big idea is that citizen-generated content lowers costs and creates more loyal audiences.
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Airborne again

: I'm traveling again today (to Boston); posting in the a.m. and then later. bt pdf converter professional

December 08, 2004

A new anti-Semitism

: I'm watching a most frightening Scarborough Country with guest hotheadhost Pat Buchanan as he and most of his guests attack Hollywood for not bowing down to Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic Passion of the Christ because -- in the words of William Donohue of the Catholic League -- "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews." Buchanan doesn't scold him but instead talks about how good movies 50 years ago were mde by "Jewish folks." The only -- the token -- Jew on the show is Rabbi Smuley Boteach, who replies to Buchanan's talk about how the Oscars will surely honor Michael Moore and not Mel Gibson and says that Moore and Gibson commit the same sin: "they both whitewash tyrants." The attacks on "the Jews" continue until another guest starts attacking homosexuals. Scary people. Scary show. bt pdf converter professional

Media on media

: Just got a call to be on Anderson Cooper's show tonight to talk about the FCC. bt pdf converter professional

Pissy pols

: I ended up on the same Continental flight from Newark to Washington with Sen. Frank Lautenberg. When you fly to D.C., you are not allowed to stand up in the last half-hour of the flight, and so the Senator took a pitstop in the back before we took off. bt pdf converter professional

"At my age and in my profession," the senator said, "you never pass up a men's room."bt pdf converter professional

Remainders

: At National Airport's newsstands, they're selling Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers and souvenir notepads for 75 percent off. bt pdf converter professional

Veterans

: At The Week's event yesterday, I was lucky to sit next to Garrick Utley, legendary NBC News correspondent, and Myron Kandel of CNN. They need no introductions. I introduce myself as an internet exec and also a blogger. bt pdf converter professional

So Utley asks what impact blogs are having on big media. I stick in the sound cart you'll expect me to play: I say that they are turning news into a conversation. And he grabs onto that like a dog on a steak: He says he gave a commentary after the '92 election that said that politics is forever changed into a new kind of conversation. bt pdf converter professional

We talked about how it's too bad there are no commentaries from network anchors anymore (or I said that because I think it's part of meeting the need for transparency). bt pdf converter professional

Utley talked about his father's career in radio, which used to be filled with commentary: They read the news and then they told you what they thought about it, from one side or the other. Talk radio today is no different, he said, only they talk longer. bt pdf converter professional

I asked about the fate of network news. Utley said the jig was up a decade ago. bt pdf converter professional

I asked what they'd advise students trying to go into journalism today. They each shrugged, regretfully. Utley wondered whether anyone could make a living in this new medium (and you can guess the other sound cart I played on that topic). bt pdf converter professional

Here's the point: Utley (whom I spoke with more than with Kandel) really gets it. He is, in all sense of the word, an old media guy. But he gets it. Even from a brief conversation at a crowded table, it's clear that he understands exactly where the news business is today. And well he should; he has seen it all and done it all. bt pdf converter professional

It made me once again want to get big media and citizens' media people together to see that the other guys are smart and care. bt pdf converter professional

A fine mess

: Yesterday, I went to 21 to attend the latest lunch thrown by The Week magazine, this time -- appropriate to the venue -- a debate about the economy with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and rich smart guy PEter G. Peterson and then with CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow, Yale's Michael Graetz, and the irritating tax nudge with the Sesame Street name, Grover Norquist. bt pdf converter professional

Peterson stole the show. He argued convincingly (not that sane souls need much convincing) that we are in a budget crisis that is being handed to our children with an $11 trillion shortfall in Social Security ("one of the oxymorons of our time -- the trust fund; it shouldn't be trusted and it's not funded") and a coming Medicare crisis that's "three to four times more difficult than Social Security and harder to solve." He also said we're in a savings crisis with the U.S. savings rate falling from 8 percent of GDP 12 years ago to .2 percent today. bt pdf converter professional

Peterson proposed mandated savings (a la Chile, Singapore, and now Australia) in global index funds and fixed income bonds. He didn't get much disagreement from Rubin or even from Kudlow. bt pdf converter professional

Rubin and Petersen also agreed that our real problem is that we don't sense the crisis. Witness Kudlow, who goes on about how peachy things are in the economy now; no need to worry; no need to upset anything. bt pdf converter professional

"What we need is a massive dose of truth-telling," Petersen said. He suggested following the example of the 9/11 Commission to get high-level brains (e.g., Rubin, Voelker, Nunn) to come up with the tough solutions the pols are unwilling or afraid to propose. Added Rubin: "The fundamental problem is our political system is no longer for the most part willing to make decisions that are difficult." bt pdf converter professional

Amen. And I, too, have wanted to see 9/11-Commission-like groups tackling health care and insurance. But isn't that what our legislatures are supposed to do? Isn't that why we elect them? Isn't it a bit frightening that we need to set up shadow legislatures -- which is what these commissions really are -- to separate themselves from politics and get real work done? Whatever it takes....bt pdf converter professional

Rubin added that media holds a lot of the responsibility for the problem and the solution and I agree. We need to be part of that massive truth-telling. We need to find the ways to raise the alarms. Said Rubin: "Public officials need to feel as if they are going to be held accountable by an informed electorate."
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Chicken Little, reporting from Kabul

: Yesterday, I listen to NPR on the installation of the first democractically elected leader in the history of Afghanistan and the reporter -- from the BCC, of course -- ends all the good news by adding: But, Afghanistan's people are amongst the poorest in the world. Yeah? And your point? The implication, of course, is that we shouldn't be celebrating so fast. But, of course, we should be, for we got rid of the tyrants who made them among the poorest people in the world. I can only hope that that reporter was among the many the BBC laid off yesterday. bt pdf converter professional

Airborne

: Traveling today. Blogging when wi-fi allows.bt pdf converter professional

December 07, 2004

The dirtiest trick

: The Times of London says doctors confirm that Yushchenko was poisoned. bt pdf converter professional

Building bridges

: I'm very excited that I get to meet the Baghdad bloggers behind Iraqthemodel.com tomorrow. Will give you a full report. bt pdf converter professional

Spirit of America: Joining Forces

: Winds of Change and Buzzmachine have joined forces in the Spirit of America blogger challenge. So together, we challenge you to give to the cause of spreading citizens' media around the world and supporting the first Arabic-language blogging tool. Please give here. bt pdf converter professional

Up next

: Corante and Ernie Miller's next interview in their series (mine was here) is with Tim Wu, a University of Virginia expert in copyright and more. bt pdf converter professional

Follow the money II

: Tim Oren continues the discussion about where the money is in this new world and adds two buzzphrases:
* Enhance the value of the long tail, and extend it further
* Every ad a wanted ad
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Fox fights back

: I just got a copy of Fox Broadcasting's rebuttal to the FCC's record fine against Married by America. It is a great document. bt pdf converter professional

I'll proudly note first that I am a footnote for my reporting (complete with permalink).

Mr. Jarvis concludes that the "latest big fine by the FCC against a TV network . . . was brought about by a mere three people who actually composed letters of complaint. Yes, just three people." Id. Mr. Jarvis further complains that "[i]t is Constitutionally abhorrent that only three people can cause the government to abuse the First Amendment and attempt to censor and chill speech." Id.
I am honored to officially stand between the FCC and the First Amendment, even if only in a minor supporting role. bt pdf converter professional

Fox added an important observation -- as Mediaweek did yesterday -- about the tactics of the Bozell complaint factory: "Only one complainant professed even to have watched the program." Exactly. The FCC does nothing to confirm that these alleged complaints come from citizens or that they watched the show. Bozell apparently pays lackeys to ferret out "filth" and then uses his cult members and his FCC bitches to do is bidding. And media follow right along without asking the right questions. bt pdf converter professional

Also, I never reported the audience size for this allegedly indecent show before. Fox says that 5.1 million households watched (which means more viewers than that). So it's 5.1 million vs. 3. bt pdf converter professional

Whose community standards is the FCC enforcing? Not my community's. bt pdf converter professional

And that raises another point that is the subject of my next FOIA request: The FCC, according to Fox, does nothing to discover and discern community standards. I'm going to ask to see any and all surveys, focus groups, and studies of the community and its standards used by the FCC in its enforcement of those standards. bt pdf converter professional

Fox makes a number of good arguments in its 77-page filing against the FCC's continued censorship. Among them:bt pdf converter professional


: The FCC is enforcing an indecency standard that the Supreme Court specifically rejected in the Communications Decency Act.

... the Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU ruled that the indecency standard that Congress proposed for the Internet in the Communications Decency Act ("CDA") was unconstitutional. The CDA's definition of indecency was nearly identical to the broadcast standard – the only difference between the two definitions was the phrase "for the broadcast medium," which modifies contemporary community standards. The Court's conclusion that the Internet standard was unconstitutionally vague applies with equal force to the Commission's broadcast indecency standard...bt pdf converter professional

The Reno Court found that the failure of the CDA to explain key terms in the definition of indecency would "provoke uncertainty among speakers" and prevent them from divining what speech violated the statute.The vagueness was especially troubling because the regulation of indecency is inherently a content-based regulation of speech. "The vagueness of such a regulation rasies special First Amendment concerns because of its obvious chilling effect on free speech."

Case in point: Saving Private Ryan, which Fox also cites.bt pdf converter professional


: The FCC is attempting here to expand its own definition of indecency. The show depicted no nudity and no sexual activity and so the FCC went after the show's "sexual nature." That is new.

Without discussion or analysis, the Commission apparently has expanded its definition of indecency to provide that any scene of a "sexual nature" depicts "sexual activity." "Sexual nature" is found nowhere in the Commission's Indecency Policy Statement nor in its rules, nor are we aware of any previous case relying on this legal standard to find that broadcast material violates the Commission's threshold requirements for an indecency violation....bt pdf converter professional

Television programs too numerous to name and fitting into widely divergent genres – from Friends to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – involve some scenes that could be described as "sexual in nature" and occasionally rely on "sexually compromising situations" to develop the plot and intensify the drama or comedy for viewers. The Commission's new legal standard, "sexual nature," not only represents a sudden departure from precedent with no apparent legal basis whatsoever but also is so overbroad that it threatens to implicate the day-time and prime-time line-ups for nearly all broadcast television.

This follows the FCC's expansionist efforts in declaring that Bono's F word was profane -- the first time it had found anything profane. bt pdf converter professional

And so it is not hard to see that the FCC could expand this "sexual nature" rule into other forms of speech. If Fox can be fined for suggesting sex and pixelating it, can a radio station be fined for bleeping the F word if we know what it is (as we always do) because that station is giving us speech of a profane nature?bt pdf converter professional


: The supposedly indecent programming lasted for only 105 seconds (which may seem like an eternity vs. the 19/32nds of a second that Janet Jackson's breast felt fresh air but it's a blink in any case). The FCC is supposed to go after content that "deslls on or repeats at length" indecent material. I don't call 105 seconds dwelling. bt pdf converter professional


: The content of the allegedly offending segment was not only relevant to the show, it bolstered the moral message of the show: "Indeed, the contestants who exhibited the most discomfort at their bachelor and bachelorette parties were the same contestants chosen by viewers in the final audience vote." So the moral side won. Give credit to the American people; they will chose the right way; they don't need government to choose it for them!bt pdf converter professional

Fox continues: "The Commission ignores these facts, choosing instead to insert itself into the creative process...." Right. That is precisely the problem with government acting as censor. Government inevitably then acts as editor and producer. That is not and should never be government's role. bt pdf converter professional


: The FCC's rules are unconstitutionally vague.

the Commission's definition of indecency is unconstitutionally vague, providing broadcasters with no reliable guidelines to discern which content is lawful in the eyes of the Commission. Moreover, the definition incorporates the concept of a national community standard for the broadcast medium, but the Commission has never defined that standard with any degree of precision, let alone the kind of precision necessary to survive a constitutional review.
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: The governmnent "has never demonstrated that indecent material is harmful to children, and for that reason as well, teh Commission's rules cannot survive strict constitutional scrutiny."bt pdf converter professional


: Broadcast should no longer be singled out for censorship.

Given the tremendous technological changes that have transformed the modern media environment, the Commission's indecency regulations no longer can withstand constitutional scrutiny. The massive expansion of cable and satellite video programming, together with the advent of the Internet, renders obsolete the second-class treatment that broadcasters are being subjected to under the First Amendment. ...bt pdf converter professional

In any event, the "special justifications" for lesser First Amendment protection of broadcasting (including its "invasive nature," "the scarcity of available frequencies at its inception," and a "history of extensive government regulation") clearly no longer support disparate constitutional treatment.

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: The Commission itself speaks with forked tongue on the question of broadcast's special role -- in the case of censorship, arguing still that TV is uniquely pervasive while in the case of its technology regulation, arguing that, in the FCC's own words:

"Today we can access news, information, and entertainment in many enhanced and non-traditional ways via: cable and satellite television, digital transmission, personal and portable recording and playback devices, handheld wireless devices, and perhaps the most extraordinary communications development, the Internet. In short, the number of outlets for national and local news, information, and entertainment is large and growing."
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: There are now other means to regulate what comes into the home -- such as the V chip. The Supreme Court, in its close decision on Carlin's seven dirty words -- the decision that empowers to the FCC -- said that the agency should find the least restrictive way to deal with indecency. It is not.

In contrast to a total ban on protected speech, technology, particularly the V-Chip, povides the government with a far less restrictive means of protecting children from the purported harm of indecent material: Parents can simply disable television sets from receiving objectionable content....bt pdf converter professional

While at the time of Pacifica it may not have been possible to keep the pig out of the parlor, today, the VChip and other blocking technologies enable individual citizens to make sure that the pig stays in the barnyard.

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: The FCC is being inconsistent in fining the Fox affiliates while not finding CBS affiliates. bt pdf converter professional


And on and on. It is a good thing that the First Amendment will again have its day in court against the jihad of the cult and the Commission. bt pdf converter professional

December 06, 2004

You are what you buy II

: Last month, the NY Times reported how the GOP used marketing patterns to sell their president to their voters. Today, The Times adds more fascinating details (story here, chart here):bt pdf converter professional

: Democrats watch more TV than Republicans. Fill in stereotyped conclusion here. bt pdf converter professional

: During the week, Republicans turn off the TV earlier than Democrats. Republicans who stay up watch Leno, Democrats who stay up watch Letterman.bt pdf converter professional

: Big Republican channels: Speedvision, Golf channel. Big Democratic channels: CourtTV, Game Show Network.bt pdf converter professional

: Democrats are more likely to go to the movies. bt pdf converter professional

: Republicans and undecided voters to go health clubs.bt pdf converter professional

: Get this: "One of the shows most popular with Republicans, especially Republican women ages 18 to 34, turned out to be be 'Will & Grace.'"bt pdf converter professional

: Republicans are more likely to drive Porsches, Jaguars, Land Rovers. Democrats are more likely to drive Volvos, Subarus, Mazdas, Volkswagens, Honda. Boy, we drive our own cliches.bt pdf converter professional

: Republicans are more likely to water-ski, snow-ski, and do volunteer work. bt pdf converter professional

: Republicans are far less likely than average Americans to dance; Democrats are far more likely. See Will & Grace, above. bt pdf converter professional

: Republicans are more likely to like Nascar, and college football. Democrats are far more likely to like women's basketball. See Will & Grace, above.
bt pdf converter professional

The real cultural revolution

: The Playboy Club is coming to China. bt pdf converter professional

Why Rather left

: Punditguy quotes at length from Tim Rutten's view of why Dan Rather is leaving the air and it's a good thing he is because you can't get to the LATimes Calendar without subscribing. bt pdf converter professional

FCC -- and media -- duped by Brent Bozell's complaint factory

: First I revealed that the FCC's largest fine in history was based on only three original letters and now Mediaweek has a great story revealing that up to 99.9 percent of complaints to the FCC come straight from King Prig Brent Bozell's self-annointed Parents Television Council. bt pdf converter professional

It's shocking enough that the FCC has not revealed this on its own and it took a bloggers' FOIA request to start to reveal the lie. To me, that indicates that the FCC was a knowing accomplice in this; they went along with Bozell's shock troops because they wanted to. bt pdf converter professional

But here's the real shocker:bt pdf converter professional

Now go back to every single news story that "reported" floods of outrage and complaint about everything from Janet Jackson's breast to Howard Stern's farts to Fox's whipped cream and discount that by 99+ percent. And now tell me whether that's a flood of outrage. And, more important, all you news commentators who pontificated about an upsurge of moral values and a shift to cultural conservatism in America, tell me whether you're going to reexamine the conclusions you jumped to and correct yourselves. bt pdf converter professional

As I said in my original post about the three letters to the FCC, this is like an old Foreign Legion movie in which three soldiers act like three hundred by putting helmets on sticks over the fort's walls. Only stupid foes fall for that. The FCC and reporters are the stupid foes here. bt pdf converter professional

Here's what Todd Shields reports in Mediaweek:

In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.bt pdf converter professional

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”bt pdf converter professional

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints.

I don't know why Shields says Powell was unaware but I doubt that. When I reported my story on the FCC for The Nation, the FCC flack wouldn't let me quote him but he fully acknowledged that the vast majority of complaints came from a factory.
According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.bt pdf converter professional

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.bt pdf converter professional

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)bt pdf converter professional

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group....

Wake up, reporters. Do the real story. A tiny fringe group and the FCC are trying to censor our media and cripple the First Amendment and lazy reporters are swallowing their garbage as they draw grand conclusions about the state of debate in America. It's time to tell the real story. It's time to stop them. bt pdf converter professional

Your Yahoo?

: The new MyYahoo is up and I'm surprised to be among 14 blogs listed under lifestyle. Yes, I am a lifestyle. bt pdf converter professional

December 05, 2004

The First Amendment gets its day in court

: Fox -- bless 'em -- has decided to fight the FCC's record fine against its Married by America, getting the first court test of the FCC's censorship in more than 25 years.

Fox Broadcasting Co. is appealing a record-setting $1.18 million fine for airing racy fare on a show called "Married by America," saying the government's indecency rules for broadcast television are unconstitutional because they don't apply to cable and satellite television.bt pdf converter professional

Fox said the show was not indecent, and it argues that over-the-air broadcasters are now treated as "second-class citizens" by a Federal Communications Commission that unfairly holds them but not their rivals to decency standards. bt pdf converter professional

If the FCC upholds the fine, Fox could take the case to court, creating the first test case against federal indecency standards in a quarter of a century, media lawyers said. The indecency rules are based on a Supreme Court ruling made in 1978 -- well before the widespread use of cable and satellite radio and television, the Internet and technologies that allow parents to block objectionable material. Even some within the FCC have said that the rules are ripe for legal challenge.bt pdf converter professional

"First and foremost, the commission's indecency regulations no longer can withstand constitutional scrutiny," Fox's filing to the FCC reads. "Given the tremendous technological changes that have transformed the modern media environment, the commission simply cannot justify an intrusive, content-specific regulation of broadcasters." ...bt pdf converter professional

If Congress attempted to extend broadcast indecency standards to cable and satellite, lawmakers would face several First Amendment obstacles, media lawyers say. If, on the other hand, Congress attempted to roll back decency standards on broadcast, they likely would face significant political pressure from parents groups and socially conservative organizations....bt pdf converter professional

"Indeed, the massive expansion of cable and satellite video programming, together with the advent of the Internet, renders obsolete the second-class treatment of broadcasters under the First Amendment," the Fox filing reads. "These technological and marketplace changes make clear that regulation of indecency, which the commission itself recognizes is constitutionally protected speech, cannot possibly survive strict scrutiny review."

: Note, too, that the chill has hit political speech. I've used the example often that if a newsmaker says "F--- Bush" on the air, he could be fined, under new legislation, $500,000. Here's the story of a radio commentator who used the F word in a political discussion and was fired because of fear of the FCC. Now, of course, the station could chose to fire him for using the word no matter what; that is its prerogative. But who knows whether he would have been fired before the Bono ruling. And in any case, the speech that was silenced was not sexual but was political. And the government had a role in silencing it. That is dangerous. bt pdf converter professional

: Also, separately, here's a write-up of the Jake Tapper ABC World News Tonight piece on the Fox fine. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: I wonder whether the FCC would have the balls to reverse itself on Married by America -- since that's the first stop on this train -- to block a court challenge. bt pdf converter professional

Hi, neighbor

: The New York Times New Jersey section has a feature by Jonathan Miller about a suburban blogger who happens to be me (it's not online; The Times doesn't put its 'burban sections up). To my neighbors who happen by here as a result, welcome. You'll find blatherings about media, politics, the FCC and Howard Stern, and whatever else happens by. Stay and chat awhile. bt pdf converter professional

: UPDATE: Jonathan Miller just put up the text of the piece on his blog. Here it is. bt pdf converter professional

Their tomorrow

: I went to Adam Penenberg's NYU media ethics class on Thursday (and, by coincidence, as I write this I'm watching Shattered Glass, featuring Adam and his good reporting). I enjoyed meeting these students because I believe they can and will have a greater impact on journalism than any class in my lifetime. They can reshape the relationship of news media to its public. They can be the first of a generation of young people since Hearst who can become media entrepreneurs. They can also help share lessons about standards of professionalism and tricks of the trade with citizens' media. A we talked about ethics, libel, copyright, and such in relation to bloggers, I said they should share the lessons they're learning -- because the knowledge is fresh for them and, frankly, it's stale for the likes of graying me -- and a few students immediately started plotting putting up a wiki to do just that. bt pdf converter professional

: On lighter notes... One student blogged afterwards about my blog triumphalism, always fair game. Another emailed the group that she thought she'd remembered me... from an episode of Moonlighting. And another student blogged this:

Today, in my Media Ethics class, taught by Adam Penenberg, we had a speaker named Jeff Jarvis. A friend of mine, after class, told me that she wanted him for her dad. He was cool.
OUCH! Pardon me while I take the icepick out of my graying temple. bt pdf converter professional
December 04, 2004

Celebrating democracy

: What a wonderful column from Nick Kristof today, celebrating the democratic victory in Ukraine. Kristof's father was from the Urkraine.

Here's a suggestion for President Bush from the protesters behind the democratic "orange revolution" here: Wear an orange tie.bt pdf converter professional

"If he wore an orange tie, people here would be crying," said Yuri Maluta, a protester from Lviv. "It would show that the American president supports democracy here."

The request says something about the lighthearted and pro-American spirit on the streets. Since my father grew up in what is now southwestern Ukraine, I decided to come here to join my people - and I found that waging revolution has rarely been such fun.bt pdf converter professional

Young people enveloped in orange scarves, hats and ribbons alternately chant slogans for freedom, boogie to rock music, eat oranges, warm up and flirt at McDonald's, and disappear into their downtown "tent city" to make love, not war.bt pdf converter professional

The protest organizers have placed gorgeous young women in the vanguard of confrontations with troops, so the troops will be too dazzled to club them.

Oh, how I love that last note. [Memo to the next Howard Dean: If you want to win Iowa, don't send in geeks in wacky hats; send in democracy babes.]
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King Prig

: Well, well, what a banner week: First Michael Powell feels compelled to defend himself against the rising storm of criticism of his censorship and unconstitutional actions. Now his puppetmaster, the most frightening man in America, the prude of prudes, King Prig, L. Brent Bozell III, feels compelled to launch a personal attack on little old me. I guess we must be doing something right, eh?bt pdf converter professional

Bozell is the self-appointed head of the self-created Parents Television Council -- the proof that you can print a letterhead and end up as a spokesman for anything on cable news -- and the guy who wants to singlehandedly censor all media in America to his lowest denominator. bt pdf converter professional

But let me tell you something, Mr. Bozell:bt pdf converter professional

I am a parent and you do not speak for me.bt pdf converter professional

I am a Christian and you do not speak for me. Let me really scare you and tell you that I not only got to church every Sunday, I sing in the choir, I serve as a head of the church's organizing body, I preach sermons, I teach Sunday school. But I also like Howard Stern and Desperate Housewives. Pardon me while I dodge the lightning bolts. bt pdf converter professional

And I am an American but you do not speak for me. This is a nation built on free speech and a belief in tolerance and the value of the marketplace of ideas and the blessing of diversity. You are against all that. You try to stop the rest of us from watching what you think we should not watch. You disdain and condemn your fellow Americans and our culture because it does not match your idea of what it should be. That, sir, seems distinctly unAmerican to me. bt pdf converter professional

You think you have some God-given right to tell us what we should and should not do. You do not. bt pdf converter professional

But you know what? I think you should be able to watch whatever you want to watch, even if it is the 700 Club with its hate and homophobia. I would not presume to try to get it taken off the air for hate speech. I simply turn the channel. You should do the same. bt pdf converter professional

And so now I'll get to the second fisking in two days (that's fisking not fisting, sir, a bloggers' word; please call off your complaint factory) with my response to King Prig. Note that I cannot do this on Bozell's site because he does not allow comments. I've already had a dialogue with one of his people in my comments and I continue that here because, Bozell, I'm an American and I believe in the free marketplace of ideas. So, to Bozell's "column":

Ever since exit-pollsters discovered a significant chunk of voters were casting their ballots based on which candidate stood for moral values - and most of those who chose that reason for their vote said they picked Republicans - the Hollywood crowd has tried to pick the idea apart, as conflicted, even ridiculous.
This is fun already. First, you know damned well -- oops, goshdarned well -- that exit poll in question was full of crap. In fact, you know what should really scare you (based on your own skewed mathematical analysis below): It should scare you that 100 percent of voters did not say they valued moral values. What about those other 78 percent, Brent? Are they all Democrats? bt pdf converter professional

But, of course, the real truth is that all 100 percent of those voters do have moral values and value morals; they simply don't all have your moral values. And that is what makes America great. That is why this country was founded. That is the essence of America. bt pdf converter professional

For you to say as you do here that morality = GOP is the clearest indication of your true agenda.

The anything-goes gang is suggesting we live in a pretty hypocritical country if we can profess our desire for moral leadership and make our number-one smash on television the ABC smut soap "Desperate Housewives."
You call it a smut soap. I call it a fun show. Fine. You change the channel and I won't. That's why we have tons of channels now. Go enjoy something else. Watch Bambi. I'll watch Desperate Housewives. Just leave me alone and we're both happy. Oh, but you don't want to leave me alone. You want to tell me what I can and cannot watch. I keep forgetting. You're our self-appointed censor. The unAmerican.
When the red states profess a great concern for moral values and then embrace sleazy shows, that's hypocrisy, is it not? No, it's not. The argument is disingenuous. Television today is so splintered, with so many choices, that a hit show - even a number one show - doesn't translate into broad (and never mind majority) appeal. "Desperate Housewives" attracts less than 25 million viewers a week. Out of an estimated U.S. population of 290 million people, that's less than one in ten Americans that cares for this allegedly massive hit show.
Oh, this keeps getting more fun. So you want to play a numbers game? You want to say that 25 million people don't matter? Then how about your three people, Brent? Or your 23? Or your 4,003? If you want to play a numbers game, you'll lose. A helluva -- oops, heckuva -- lot more people watch and enjoy Desperate Housewives than give a rat's rump about your weltanschauung or come to your complaint factory. But, of course, that's not the point. The point is that we all should get to chose what we want to watch -- if you and your FCC henchmen will let us.
That fraction of the country is a very lucrative fraction for ABC and its advertisers, but political and pop-culture theorists are drawing wild conclusions about an America riddled with hypocrisy with some rather addled mathematics.
No, sir, that is called capitalism. Here in America, we value capitalism. We value the marketplace. We respect it. But, of course, being unAmerican, you would not understand that. Yes, there are more than enough millions of Americans who enjoy watching Desperate Housewives and more than enough marketers who want to reach those smart and good citizens of this great country of ours that it is lucrative. And you presume to want to stop them. You presume to think you're better than all 25 million of them. You want to insult and reject them. Who died and made you God?
By the same token, a show like NBC's "Will and Grace" is ranked 20th so far this season, averaging about 15 million viewers. That's very good ratings for a TV show these days, but it's awfully flimsy to take those 15 million Americans - five percent of the population -- and say, voila, America favors gay marriage.
No, buddy boy -- oops, pardon me for being so familiar; I hope you're secure enough in your manhood to allow me that intimacy -- all this shows is that (1) many more millions of people have a sense of humor than belong to your made-up organization and (2) we are a tolerant country, an open country, a country that accepts and, yes, celebrates the differences in people that make this country great. Oh, but I keep forgetting, you are unAmerican. bt pdf converter professional

Yes, we know what you think of gay people. Here's a quote from one of your columns: "The producers of 'The Reagans' are Craig Zadan and Neal Meron, who’ve been instrumental in bringing TV revivals of classic musicals to television for Disney. They are also openly gay activists...." Uh-oh, are you going to go after musicals next, Brent? Are they just too gay for you to bear? Warn me first so I can go out and buy up Sondheim, OK? bt pdf converter professional

And there's this from you: "Remember that when next your children turn on the television. If you are trying to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is decadent and immoral, understand that television is telling them just the opposite -- and telling you to go fly a kite." But you see, Brent, I try to teach my children that all people -- gay or straight, Christian or Jew, fundamentalist or reformed, black or white, male or female, American or not -- are God's children. Don't you teach your children that? What kind of parents are in the Parents Television Council, anyway? Do you teach them intolerance and hate instead? Jeesh, Brent, if I were to judge you as you presume to judge me and the rest of America, I'd say that's both unAmerican and unChristian. I don't want my children anywhere near your Sunday School, thank you.

Hollywood can write a saucy show with all of its creativity aimed at the collective crotch, and make buckets of money.
I don't much like your language, guy. Midsection, please, midsection.
But the numbers prove that a vast majority of the public does not applaud when they push every envelope, erode every decency, mock every moral standard.
No, the numbers don't prove that at all. Basic lesson in mass media in the new century: There are now hundreds of channels and hundreds of choice and we're all watching what we want to watch, no thanks to you. Shall we talk about how many people do not listen to you? Shall we talk about how many people do not go to church? Shall we talk about how many people commit sins? The numbers game isn't working for you, guy.
Hollywood, unfortunately, couldn't care less. Millions can write and call Hollywood in opposition, and nothing happens.
Millions? And what about the millions upon millions who watch those shows you don't like? Those millions don't count?
Hollywood has made it clear that their La La Land hot-tub programming tastes are not up for debate.
Well, Bozell, so have you!
Like it, or lump it, but the sleaze parade will continue, so long as a buck can be made.
Like it or lump it, the prudery parade will continue, too, apparently. But I really don't mind, as long as you leave me alone. Parade all you want. Do it in high heels, for all I care. Oops, sorry.
So those millions have learned to send their letters and calls instead to Washington, which seems to be the only way to get Hollywood's attention.
Millions? Again?
Now the defenders of sleaze are trying to manufacture the mathematics in Washington, too. The fashionable pundit on all this right now - recited by every libertine columnist from the New York Times to Newsweek - is the former TV Guide critic Jeff Jarvis, now fulminating on a web site called Buzzmachine.com.
Well, shucks, thanks, Brent ol' boy: I'm a fashionable pundit now, am I? Jealous? Have I stolen some of your air time? No, sir, I merely exposed your shell game for what it is.
Jarvis tried to earn his math spurs this fall by asserting that he filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC on the fined Fox show "Married by America." Of the 159 complaints he said he was sent, only three count - because there were two original letter writers and the rest followed the form of a complaint from the Parents Television Council.
Well, you got that right. But I did not know that it was a form from you, to be clear, until ABC News' Jake Tapper found and showed me the page.
Perhaps Mr. Jarvis doesn't know this, but I know this, and will charge here publicly: t