Looks like we have about 4 of our predicted 6 inches of snow and it’s still falling. But we have a nice fire going and Lucy and Ripley are snoozed out. Barb made a big pot of chilli and all is right with the world.
Where we live there’s no traffic sounds or city lights and nights like this are peaceful and beautiful. I couldn’t resist sharing a minute with you. If you listen closely you can hear the wind chimes just a couple of feet from where I was standing.
“My brother Adam isn’t a geek – and he’s never written to me about any other device (from Apple or any other manufacturer). It’s not even out yet and I already hate the iPhone… largely because someone else didn’t make it four years ago. Seriously. Apple gets the consumer in ways that no other company ever will. It makes my new Smartphone seem so… ancient.”
“The argument for more troops assumes that the troops we have there already are actively engaged in making Iraq secure, only there aren’t enough of them. What I saw was that our troops were mostly engaged in keeping themselves secure — and even that was a very tough job. The Iraq war has gone so wrong that it is no longer an occupation, no longer even a security mission. It’s just a huge mass of isolated soldiers running in place in a walled-off FOB (Forward Operating Base) archipelago, trying not to get shot or blown up and occasionally firing back at an enemy over the wall they can’t see. It’s lunacy. Adding more guys to it just means more lunacy. But our government has a high tolerance for that sort of thing, and I wouldn’t bet on it ending anytime soon.”
Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson chatted with Mrs. John Edwards this afternoon about –among other things I imaging– blogging. Here’s a couple of excerpts from her post/transcription:
“It’s just a great medium and I’m really glad to have the opportunity to speak without having somebody say what I meant to say, you know, which happens whenever there’s a reporter between you — or even, honestly, your own press people — between you and the people you’re trying to get to listen to what you have to say.”
“Here’s what the Internet has to offer. It is a direct medium between people. There is no filter. There is no intervention and that is unparalelled. If you think back about the way we used to communicate in a democracy centuries ago where people stood in the town square, handing out pamphlets with their opinions on them — isn’t this the closest we’ve really come to that again? We’ve returned to that which is what we were based on, where people can stand on their little corner of the Internet, handing out their opinions to people who are willing to listen to them.”
Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate, inked a deal recently to coordinate his Internet video campaign through Brightcove. Obama posted a video Tuesday announcing he’s forming an exploratory committee for the 2008 election. Brightcove will provide ongoing publication of campaign videos, creation of an Obama channel, and a syndication function that will allow bloggers and Web sites to publish campaign clips.
Brightcove looks, on the surface, similar to YouTube. But it’s very different, in that YouTube is designed for consumers to share videos with each other, while Brightcove is designed to allow businesses to publish videos to the Web.
Forget the politics for a moment… think of the implications of millions of people using their blogs to propagate the messages of their favorite candidates. We might live to see a day when it doesn’t take bazillion dollars to run for office.
Despite the fact the product isn’t even out yet, Apple says its upcoming PC-to-TV device is the fastest-selling item on its website, even beating out iPods. Apple TV is poised to become a surprise hit, says analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research. “If Apple were to convert 1 percent of those iPod owners to Apple TV owners, it would be a success. That would be a million units,” he said. [LostRemote]
I ordered one, too. Supposed to ship in February. I’ll report here once it’s up and running.
“In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, but isn’t, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.
Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.”
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is releasing another of its ongoing reports tracking Americans’ use of the internet today. Among the findings:
More than 60 million people (31% of all Americans online) say they were online during the 2006 campaign to get information about candidates and/or exchange views via email. They call this growing group “campaign internet users.” This group trends young; wealthy; well-educated; and somewhat more white than of color (33% of white Americans vs 23% of blacks and Hispanics). More at Personal Democracy Forum.
I was reminded this week of the scene in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) when Kris Kringle, the store Santa at Macy’s Department Store, tells a shopper she can find the toy her child wants –and Macy’s is out of– at Gimble’s, a competing New York store. Kris put the needs of the customer ahead of Macy’s and is rewarded by none other than Mr. Macy himself. You’ve seen the movie about a thousand times.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
Last Friday, police and the FBI found a 13-year old boy who had been missing for four days, and a 15-year old boy who had been missing for four years in a suburb of St. Louis.
I clicked over to Missourinet.com to see what we had on the story and found a couple of grafs with some sound contributed by a radio station stringer in St. Louis.
I should explain that I am not a journalist and don’t mess with the stories written by our reporters. I do, however, add photos when we have them (as in this instance). But because I knew there was a lot more on the story than we had, I added links to Yahoo! News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and NPR. Something I almost never do. I was definitely off the reservation.
Our reporter later pulled the link to NPR and explained: “We don’t want to send people to a competing news organization.”
I confess I hadn’t thought of NPR as a competitor to our state news network but –again– it wasn’t my call to make. I found myself using the Miracle on 34th Street defense:
“I thought I was putting the needs of those visiting our site ahead of any competitive concerns. They’ll appreciate the links and come back to us next time.”
I got off with hardly a slap on the wrist but came away thinking about how much blogging has changed my thinking. A lifetime ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of telling a listener to our radio station they could get what they wanted/needed at the cross-town competitor. But these day, I’m all about the links.
I think I was right in this instance but a) it really wasn’t my call and b) I wouldn’t know where to begin to convince our hard-working reporter. Somewhere on 34th Street?
“Maybe sometimes we need to go pound a country that’s harboring terrorists, for example. But do we need to stay and overthrow the government after the pounding is done? If the U.S. didn’t have troops in Afghanistan, would Osama be any harder to find?
I like to look on the bright side. The U.S. proved that it can destroy any country that it wants. Iraq has shown that no little country can be occupied without unacceptable costs. That seems like a good way to leave things.” — Scott Adams
Have cartoonists always been smarter than politicians, or is it just a W thing?