This is near the top of the Zugspitze, on a trip taken when the dollar used to be worth something, against the euro.
Month: August 2007 Page 3 of 4
I think that Post Secret has been one of the most amazing accomplishments of the Web I’ve ever seen. Technology in the service of our humanity.
Josh Marshall asks an obvious question about the validity of a bill that was signed by the President, but not passed by the House or Senate. Is there really a question here? And if so – was I’m Just a Bill on Capitol Hill all a pack of lies?
Speaking of having to concern ourselves with things that ought not to have occurred in the first place, you’ve probably heard about the problem with Pearl Jam’s webcast performance this past Sunday. One of AT&T’s webcast editors apparently cut out parts of the performance that were critical of Bush (a few lines, it seems). AT&T is blaming an overzealous editor, and is claiming no nefarious intentions. Which I’m perfectly willing to believe. But it still leaves me asking: what kind of culture do we have where it makes sense to you – an editor covering a Lollapalooza concert, for godsake – to dump a few mildly critical lines about the President? Are you that afraid? That bitter? It makes no sense to me.
And in the category of things that make no sense, you might have seen the amusing video of CNBC financial show host Jim Cramer’s on-air meltdown. Actually, it was only amusing if you didn’t listen to the details of what he was going on about. If you actually listened to him, it was really sort of nauseating. Short version: my free-market titans got too greedy trying to make money off of loans that never should have been made, so now we need the Fed to bail us out. Funny how that works, no? And even funnier is this annotated video of his meltdown, which details the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
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And the Discovery Channel cycling team is dead. Despite their having the most recent Tour de France winner, 8 TdF wins, and a solid roster of riders, they couldn’t come up with a sponsor.  Huh.
Well, that was a rather satisfying read. I tried to stretch it out as best I could, but the story just wouldn’t wait. And now that I’m done, I think I want to talk about it. And then when I go somewhere to do just that – exclaim over the presence of Humbertus Bigend, or despair over the ultimate end of Pattern Recognition‘s footage – I realize that maybe it’s best to just let it percolate in my own space for a while. Maybe take some time to go back and pick out my favorite passages, like this one:
The maids, she discovered, had actually saved and folded the bubble wrap that had come in the box from Blue Ant. It was on the shelf in the closet. Instant tip-upgrade. She put the wrapping, the box, and the helmet on the tall kitchenette table.
Doing this, she noticed the Blue Ant figurine that had come with it, standing on one of the coffee tables. She’d leave that, of course. She looked back at it, and knew she couldn’t. This was some part of her that had never grown up, she felt. A grown-up would not be compelled to take this anthropomorphic piece of molded vinyl along when she left the room, but she knew she would. And she didn’t even like things like that. She wouldn’t leave it, though. She walked over and picked it up. She’d take it along and give it to someone, preferably a child. Less because she had any feeling for the thing, which was after all only a piece of marketing plastic, than because she herself wouldn’t have wanted to be left behind in a hotel room.
Perfect, really.
I’ve occasionally tried to explain my love for Pattern Recognition, Gibson’s book before this, as due in part to the fact that it did such a spot-on job of describing the world that my aspirationally cooler, more clever self inhabited. In Spook Country, however, it seemed as if Gibson had actually been following me around the past few years, weaving the story through (an absolutely perfect portrayal of) my favorite Union Square hotel lounge, the Beaux-Arts grandiosity of my local train station, and into my forays through the shipping lanes off Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
And Gibson did all this with a story that I’ve looked for, but not yet found anywhere.  Very, very satisfying. The only downside, now, is that I suppose I’ll have to wait another four or five years for something new.
It’s here. William Gibson’s new book. Four long years since Pattern Recognition. I tried to hold it off until the weekend. Just couldn’t.
See you on the other side.
More here.
Two debates in two days, and two hard sets of boos for Hillary Clinton.
(Also, can we have a time out on discussion of Pakistan while all of the candidates buy a clue? There are some really scary things being said up there . . . )
Virginia Del. Kris Amundson (D-Fairfax) recently asked what we think she might want to share with the National Conference of State Legislatures attendees at their annual conference in Boston. She’ll be on a panel called “New Ways to Communicate with Your Constituents.†She’s received some good answers already, so I’ll stick with a few big picture themes, and then a couple of tips on direct interaction.
Big picture:
- It’s not about blogging. Or email. Or whatever might come next. It’s about communication. While blogs have received an inordinate amount of attention in recent years, they’re just another means of communication. Now, true, they’re a more widely accessible pathway than we’ve ever seen before, but – like going door to door, answering the phone, or hosting town meetings – its reason for being is communication amongst citizens and their representatives. Don’t lose sight of that.
- Communication is not simply declaration. That is, communication is a two-way street. Don’t embrace a medium – like blogs – that is designed for two-way communication if you only intend to use it for a one-way broadcast of your own message. If you start your own blog, or even have your own website – but fail to respond to queries and challenges directed at it – people will ignore it. You might as well stick with direct mail.
- Think about how you can encourage your own state and local governments to make information accessible to citizens. For example, Arlington, Virginia has an online database of all of its capital improvements projects – you can look up all bike-related projects in the planning pipeline, all scheduled projects for a particular street, or all projects still in the planning phase. Not only does this encourage good government by increasing transparency, it’s a resource that you can direct your constituents toward, so that your constituent service office can focus on communicating about policy goals, instead of serving simply as a factual information conduit.
A few practical tips:
- If you’re going to start a blog, make sure you are committed to regularly updating it. It sounds simple, to be sure, but there are an amazing number of state and local politicians that have started blogs only to let them fall by the wayside after the first few weeks. At first, it annoys the constituents. And then it becomes the butt of jokes (see, e.g., DC Mayor Anonthy William’s blog) .
- Before agreeing to “live blog” somewhere, check out the reputation of the blog’s primary author(s). Much like you wouldn’t want to show up for a speaking engagement at a Klan dinner or the Concerned Communists of America, you also don’t want to appear to lend credibility to a site that seems to exist primarily as a tool of hate or misinformation. That said, every blog community has anonymous commenters who seem to exist for the sole purpose of saying outrageous things. Pay them no mind, and don’t judge a site by the appearance of a couple of these troublemakers.
- Acknowledge the hard questions. If, via the comments on your blog or in a “live blog” situation, you get a politically awkward question, you should make a reasonable attempt to answer it – especially if everyone else has seen the question posted. Simply ignoring a question won’t make it go away. And unlike a press conference or conversation with a reporter, the unanswered question doesn’t just fade away – there’s a permanent and public record of it.
You know, I could go on for weeks about this. I’ve worked in state and federal government. My day job consists primarily of bridging the gap between the private and public sectors. I’ve been “blogging” for nearly a decade. I’m convinced that government could be substantially improved with increased transparency and honest communication between citizens and their representatives. So thanks, Del. Amundson, for taking the time to ask. And then thanks again, for taking the message to Boston.
So, with Sen. Jim Webb’s vote, the Senate passed a measure that “broaden[s] the ability to eavesdrop without warrants on communications that are primarily “foreign†in nature, even if they may touch on Americans’ phone calls and e-mail.” In doing so, they capitulated to a President who has shown, over and over again, that he cannot be trusted to respect American’s most basic rights.
I know that Sen. Webb knows that Bush can’t be trusted. I also know that he’s not stupid enough to be bamboozled by the sky-is-falling act the Administration goes through every time it wants something. What I don’t know is what in the world would move Webb to give more power to a President and Attorney General who have absolutely no respect for the law.
So what your problem, Jim Webb? Do you think that your constituents are so stupid that they’ll demand that you give Bush everything he wants? Do you just not give a damn about the Constitution? Or was it just easier for you?
I think you owe us an answer.
Background for those who are interested:
Marty Lederman’s analysis of the bill
The Director of National Intelligence and Dems agreed on a bill, Bush threw a fit, Dems capitulated.
Update: Here’s Webb’s statement on the matter. It’s as appalling as I expected. And the apologists should really be ashamed, falling all over themselves to make excuses (and what’s really sad is that they sound just like the Republicans they spent so much time and effort berating.
Bardo Rodeo Lives
Originally uploaded by Blacknell.