Author Archives: Steve Mays

Open letter to Congress, the Pentagon and leaders of the free world

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Bottle_beach_letter_inside2We need your help. We need your help to stop George W. Bush from starting a war with Iran. George W. Bush no longer represents the will of the American people. 77% of Americans disapprove of Bush’s job performance and do NOT support attacking Iran. But it’s been a long time since Bush cared what the American people think.

You could say we have the kind of leadership we deserve and you’d be right. Even if you believe –as I do– that Bush and his cronies stole the 2000 election, we allowed the vote to be close enough for him to get away with it. We know we fucked up and a lot of us are trying to rectify our mistake.

But it now seems clear that George Bush plans to launch some sort of military strike against Iran before he leaves office. Dick Cheney has been conspicuously absent for months, working on this disastrous scheme.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, we –the American people– can’t stop our president because it’s been a long time since he cared what we thought.

But maybe you can buy us some time. We just need keep him in check until November. Assuming McCain doesn’t win. In that event, America –and Iran– are fucked.

Our congress probably doesn’t have the balls or the votes to stop this madness. Our generals and admirals –with a few exceptions– will put their careers ahead of their country. So it’s up to the rest of the world to stop Bush.

We just need a little time to clean up the mess that is the Bush administration.

PS: I’m hoping for some six-degrees thing here. J-Walk gives me a link.One of his readers emails it to a friend in Germany. She knows the woman that cleans the home of German Chancellor Angela Merkel…. and so forth. It could happen.

Doc’s “story none dare tell”

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Doc Searls says we need a new leadership narrative:

“…what’s “super” about U.S. superpower — a near-limitless ability to make high-technology war, backed by a fighting force of finite size with few allies — is an anachronism. I’m not sure the people of any Great Nation are ever ready to face the fact that the height of their military and economic powers has passed. Or that the leadership they most need to assert is no longer only a military and economic one.”

If we can no longer win every war we start and our economy isn’t Number One… is it possible for the U.S. to still be “super?” Let’s hope so.

This is a thoughtful and insightful post on America, leadership and journalism. Worth a read.

Political cybersquatting

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“The election has “triggered an avalanche of cybersquatter activity,” according to NetNames, a domain name management service. Speculators have registered nearly 2,000 domain names related to presidential candidates as of last week. Names related to Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy made up over half of the registrations, followed by Mr. Obama with 635 and Mr. McCain with 269.” — The Caucus (the NYT politics blog):

I didn’t see a lot of creativity in the domain names listed in the Times story. HillarysFatAss.com and UppityAfroAmerican.com were conspicuous by their absence.

More than half of Americans say they tend not to trust the press

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That’s one of the findings of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,302 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 15 and 22, 2008 by Harris Interactive.

“Looking at the press in general, over half (54%) of Americans say they tend not to trust them, with only 30 percent tending to trust the press. Just under half (46%) of Americans say they do not trust television, while one-third (36%) do trust them. Somewhat surprisingly, Internet news and information sites do slightly better as a plurality of Americans (41%) trust them while just one-third (34%) tend not to trust them. And, radio tends to do best among Americans as 44 percent say they tend to trust it and one-third (32%) tend not to trust radio.”

As for “trusting radio,” are they referring to radio news or radio in a broader sense (talk shows, etc). And why does radio (and the net) earn higher trust than TV and newspapers?

Zogby Poll: 67% View traditional journalism as “out of touch”

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Two thirds of Americans – 67% – believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news, a new We Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Meanwhile, the online survey documented the shift away from traditional sources of news, such as newspapers and TV, to the Internet – most dramatically among so-called digital natives – people under 30 years old.

  • Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago.
  • Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source – 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older.
  • Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information.
  • Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.

Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets – 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important.

Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).