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By Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
May 16, 2003 5:55 p.m. - (Last
week's weblog)
Art you can't afford: Rothko
Works Lead Christie's Sale, as Contemporary Art Surges. Bloomberg
reports,
Two Mark Rothko paintings led the spring Postwar and Contemporary art
sale at Christie's International Plc in New York, with one of them setting
an auction record for the artist at $16.3 million.
And, from Travelers
Diagram,
The Christie's contemporary art auction is going on right now. Check
out the catalog before they take it offline. Also listen to the
audio commentaries. Informative and enjoyable! Takes you back to those
art history classes you took in college.
Vaguely related:
DisturbingAuctions.com, where you can bid on a Dean Martin hand puppet,
a Cranky Clown Lava Lamp and too many more tasteless toys.
Link
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A
Major Balks at Directive And Gets Relieved of Duty: From the Wall
Street Journal classroom edition of May 8,
MOSUL, IRAQ -- The U.S. Army issued orders for troops to seize this
city's only television station, leading an officer here to raise questions
about the Army's dedication to free speech in postwar Iraq, people familiar
with the situation said. The officer refused the order and was relieved
of duty.
The directive came from the 101st Airborne Division's commander, Maj.
Gen. David Petraeus, who has ultimate authority in Mosul and the rest
of northwest Iraq, the people familiar with the matter said. They said
it was aimed at blocking the station from continuing to broadcast the
Arabic news channel al-Jazeera.
The order has not yet been publicized in Mosul, which has no radio
station or newspaper, and Army officials here said they had no plans
to do so. Late Wednesday night, it wasn't clear whether soldiers who
had been on the grounds of the station, which is near the city's university,
had moved into the station building itself and taken control.
... The order to seize the station, which had been under the unofficial
control of a local Iraqi militia leader, was discussed at a contentious
meeting among American officials based in a former hospital here. During
the two-hour meeting last night, the head of the Army public-affairs
office in Mosul, Maj. Charmaine Means, said she could not agree to seizing
the station and posting troops there. She argued that the presence of
armed soldiers would intimidate the station's Arab employees into airing
only programming produced by, or acceptable to, the American military.
Maj. Means was told to pick up a nearby telephone. On the other end,
Col. Thomas Schoenback, chief of staff of the division, ordered her
to go along with Gen. Petraeus's plan to take the station, according
to people familiar with the matter. When she again refused, he relieved
her of her duties. A short time later, she was told that she would be
flown out of Mosul on an Army helicopter early Thursday morning.
Neither Gen. Petraeus nor Col. Schoenback could be reached for comment.
In Washington, the Pentagon could not immediately confirm the order
to seize the station. ...
Link
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A
WTC Memorial charette: If you're planning to submit a design for
the World Trade Center Memorial -- anyone over 18 may do so (Open
competition for the World Trade Center memorial, April 29) -- Greg
Allen is setting up a "charette" to help develop ideas. Here's
how he explains it:
What's a charette, you say? In architecture, it's a quick-fire, problem-solving
design exercise. When MoMA
held one to select their architect, participants whipped up their
ideas, models and sketches and submitted them in a shirt-box. Even though
it's called a charette, this exercise will put more emphasis on discussion
and problem-solving and less on specific design. The goal will be to
discuss our own real--not hypothetical--questions, ideas, and challenges
around making our proposals for the WTC Memorial. Then, after an invigorating,
thoughtful, and (hopefully) interesting charette, we'll all be primed
to make our proposals to the competition.
Here's my favorite part:
Demagogues need not apply. Since only brilliant people will participate,
there will be no need to prove our brilliance to each other.
If this appeals to you, there's more at the link on the headline.
Related:
Freelancer paints his own Ground Zero mural
Link
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FCC
targets Clear Channel's grip on rural radio: From Bloomberg News,
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission is trying to craft
rules aimed at breaking Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s hold on
radio markets in some rural areas, Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said.
The five commissioners, led by chairman Michael Powell, are trying
to redefine radio markets as part of their June 2 vote on new media
ownership rules, Abernathy said at a news conference.
San Antonio-based Clear Channel, the largest owner of U.S. radio stations,
is the focus of bipartisan concern on the commission, she said.
"Because of the way our markets are defined, in certain markets
they've clearly acquired more power than we would have wanted,"
said Abernathy, a Republican.
"Everyone agrees this is something we have to fix."
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has called attention to Clear Channel's
ownership of six of the eight radio stations in Minot, N.D.
Here's why Sen. Dorgan is so concerned: From a commentary
in the Portland Oregonian:
It's like something out of a nightmare, but it really happened: At
1:30 on a cold January night, a train containing hundreds of thousands
of gallons of toxic anhydrous ammonia derails in Minot, N.D. Town officials
try to sound the emergency alert system, but it isn't working. Desperate
to warn townspeople about the poisonous white cloud bearing down on
them, the officials call their local radio stations. But no one answers
any of the phones for an hour and a half.
According to The New York Times, one resident died after inhaling the
gas and more than 300 people were treated at hospitals -- some partially
blinded -- and pets and livestock are killed.
Where were Minot's disc jockeys on Jan. 18, 2002? Where was the late-night
station crew? As it turns out, six of the seven local radio stations
had recently been purchased by Clear Channel Communications, a radio
giant with more than 1,200 stations nationwide. Economies of scale dictated
that most of the local staff be cut: Minot stations ran more or less
on auto pilot, the programming largely dictated from farther up the
Clear Channel food chain. No one answered the phone because hardly anyone
worked at the stations any more; the songs played in Minot were the
same as those played on Clear Channel stations across the Midwest.
My radio expert, Lou
Josephs, explains in an email, "In small markets where Clear
Channel is, nothing is live after 7 p.mm ... WSRS in Worcester would be
the case in point, WGIR in Manchester also. The New York contract they
just got allows them to VoiceTrack
all nights starting 1/1/04. But the key is you can't tell if it's live
or Memorex."
MediaReform.net
is one of the places where you can make your opinions about media consolidation
known to your Congressmen. The site is the brainchild of John Nichols,
Washington correspondent for The Nation, and Robert
W. McChesney, who teaches at the University of Illinois, Their latest
publication is FCC:
Public Be Damned, slated for the magazine's June 2 issue but posted
yesterday on The Nation site.
Link
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Jessica redux: We blogged the first report
of this out of the London
Times April 16, about the real story of the Jessica Lynch rescue.
I'm with Dan Gillmor (S.J. Mercury News) on this one:
Was
Jessica Lynch Rescue Staged for TV?
The Guardian writes about a special BBC report,
"The truth about Jessica," which strongly suggests that
the heroic rescue of the American soldier was little more than reality
television -- a staged event.
What gives the British newspaper's report credence is the unwillingness
of U.S. officials to respond or make clear what actually happened. The
reporter says:
"I asked the Pentagon spokesman in Washington, Bryan Whitman,
to release the full tape of the rescue, rather than its edited version,
to clear up any discrepancies. He declined. Whitman would not talk about
what kind of Iraqi resistance the American forces faced. Nor would he
comment on the injuries Lynch actually sustained."
It would be shameful if Lynch's real bravery was turned into a cheap
publicity trick by the Pentagon, to score points with the American public.
If it's true it's a scandal. If not, we need to know so we can discredit
the slander.
So you have to ask, once again: Where are the U.S. media in covering
this story? AWOL, again.
I hope the made-for-TV movie will tell the real story, not the GI Joe
fantasy version.
Link
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"Salam
Pax" update: Warblogger Jeff
Jarvis translates some of an interview with the elusive allegedly
Iraqi blogger published today in an Austrian magazine. We'll get the full
story next week, no doubt.
Link
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People we've lost this week: Goodbye, singer
June Carter
Cash, 73 (obit);
Untouchables star Robert
Stack; reporter and Providence Newspaper guild president Bob
Jagolinzer, 60, and Matthew
Iannotti, 15.
Link
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May 15, 2003 7:05 p.m.
Updated: The
Station Fire weblog
Celebrity
auction for Station Fire victims on eBay: The Station Fire page
at hereinreality.com points to a Celebrity Charity Auction going on through
May 25 at eBay. (The Feb. 20 fire in a West Warwick nightclub killed 100
people and injured nearly 200, many with debilitating injuries.
On the block are "items donated by Patti LaBelle, Pete Rose, Jamie-Lynn
Sigler, Arianna Huffington, The Harlem Globetrotters, Mimi Kennedy, Greg
Palast, Dr. James Zogby, Dan Briody and more. Free shipping, no reserves."
All proceeds are to be donated to the Station Nightclub Fire Relief Fund.
The prices are low right now, so here your chance to pick up a bargain
for a good cause.
The actual auction
page is here.
Related: Great
White Turns To Fans For Legal Defense Help: Great White had just started
its first song when pyrotechnics ignited foam insulation in the club.
Link
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Paxil
Americana: New York is in a medicated state of mind. Tina Brown
writes at Salon (free "Day Pass" if you click an ad),
At first I thought New Yorkers were in a better mood because the war
was over. Now I'm beginning to suspect it's because everyone is on drugs.
Legal ones, that is. At a big media party the other night most of the
talk in the buffet line was about how something called Buspar is so
much more effective than Paxil for taking off the sharp edges. As one
brisk female executive told me after an altercation with a "difficult"
colleague, "I don't talk to people anymore who aren't on meds.
They're too much work."
... One of my former magazine colleagues, who's on Zoloft to diminish
her sense of panic, is married to a man who takes Wellbutrin to dampen
his inner rage. For a union of rage and panic they looked preternaturally
serene the last time we met.
There is nothing Studio
54 about any of this, by the way. That would be too much fun. This
is not about recreation or release. It's about the new mantra of "fixing
it" -- fixing whatever interferes with the multitasking urban lifestyle.
The sense of an upwardly mobile trajectory must be maintained against
all the growing economic evidence that it's sinking.
Zombies at the top of the heap, oh boy! One more reason to stay in smaller,
saner places.
Link
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SF
lawyer says he's dropping suit against Oreo cookies. Never mind.
The move to outlaw Oreo cookies in California crumbled Wednesday when
the lawyer who tried to ban the tasty snack foods said he had decided
to drop his suit.
San Francisco attorney Stephen Joseph told The Associated Press he
would not pursue the action any further, and only wanted to get the
word out about the dangers of unlabeled fats contained in the popular
black and white cookies.
"We have received thousands of e-mails expressing support for
what we have done in advising the public of this problem," Joseph
said. "But it's no longer necessary to continue the lawsuit because
at the time the lawsuit was filed nobody knew about trans fat. Now everybody
knows about trans fat."
Link
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Our Summer
Guide (reg. req.) went live today. If you're thinking of visiting
the Ocean State, check it out. (Link fixed)
Link
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May 14, 2003
Total eclipse of the Planting Moon: The full
moon occurs when the Moon lies on the opposite side of Earth from the
Sun. Tonight (if you're reading this on Thursday), the Moon is full at
exactly 11:36 p.m. Earth gets directly in the way, causing its shadow
to darken the moon, and perhaps turn it red.
Space.com
explains that this is "caused by the Earth's atmosphere bending or
refracting sunlight into the shadow. Since the Earth's shadow is cone-shaped
and extends out into space for some 857,000 miles (1,379,000 kilometers),
sunlight will be strained through a sort of "double sunset,"
all around the rim of the Earth, into its shadow and then onto the Moon.)"
Here
are more details from Space.com, which also has a graphic that conceptualizes
the process:
The total phase of the upcoming event will be visible across much of
North America, all of South America, as well as central and western
Europe and most of Africa (except the extreme eastern part). This makes
for a potential viewing audience of nearly 2 billion people.
For North Americans, this will be the first total lunar eclipse in
more than three years.
There is nothing complicated about viewing this celestial spectacle.
It is perfectly safe and simple to watch with the naked eye, but binoculars
or a small telescope will give a much nicer view.
 The
eclipse will begin rather undramatically when the Moon enters the faint
outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth's shadow about an hour before
it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbral portion of the event
is all but invisible to the eye until the Moon becomes deeply immersed
in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra
as a faint "smudge" on the left part of the Moon's disk at
or around 1:46 GMT (on May 16) which corresponds to 9:46 p.m. EDT on
May 15, or 7:46 p.m. MDT.
The event becomes more remarkable when Moon begins to enter the Earth’s
dark inner shadow (the umbra). A small scallop of darkness will begin
to appear on the Moon's left edge at 2:03 GMT (on May 16) corresponding
to 10:03 p.m. EDT (on May 15) or 8:03 p.m. MDT.
The Moon will take 3 hours and 14 minutes to pass completely through
the umbra, and just less than one-third of that time it will be entirely
immersed in shadow.
Stardate.org also
notes,
Coincidentally, the Moon is also at perigee. Whenever perigee falls
near new or full Moon, coastal areas get unusually high and low tides.
The full moon of May is called the Flower Moon, Planting Moon, or Corn
Planting Moon. Local lore has it that it's safe to plant tender annuals
and tomatoes after the full moon in May. Gardening
by the Moon agrees.
Astrologers, of course, have weighed in. Sally Cragin, writing an
astrology column for the Boston Phoenix under the name Symboline Dai,
notes,
Astrologically, eclipses can be very interesting – not a culture
on the planet doesn’t think that eclipses aren’t connected
to someone’s fall from grace or power — and since this eclipse
is in Scorpio, with a Mars/Jupiter square, I suspect those of you born
under Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius may want to watch your backs
in the weeks afterward.
Here's some
of ArtCharts' long take on the eclipse:
Lunar Eclipses are not usually responsible for great public upheaval,
as are Solar Eclipses, which have been held responsible for major changes
in governments and rulerships since Ancient times. But Lunar Eclipses,
especially where visible, foreshadow cultural changes and changes that
happen to the public more than to public figures. The effects of Lunar
Eclipses may be personal and can result in scheduling and lifestyle
changes, but their effects last only for a short while, whereas Solar
Eclipse effects can last for months or even years. This Lunar Eclipse
is in fixed-sign Scorpio, indicating that the effects of this Eclipse
may stick around for awhile. The Eclipse in Scorpio suggests that change
is not an option, but Eclipses are ABOUT change, so if there ARE changes,
they can come unexpectedly and without any warning.
The places on Earth where the Eclipse may be felt most strongly are
off the US coast in Hurricane Alley, so we can expect a year of intense
hurricanes. Also, and perhaps most prominently, North Korea (more than
South), the Philippines and eastern Indonesia, although all of Indonesia
is effected. Conflict can heat up in central Europe including eastern
Germany, East Germany, and Austria, as well as south into Egypt, the
Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Madagascar.
In NYC (home of artcharts.com), the Lunar Eclipse is in the 10th house,
indicating the public's dissatisfaction with the government, and also
the lack of trade revenue for the City of NY. This is all currently
more than true as the City raises taxes and consumer costs while cutting
services and jobs, and the Mayor's popularity sinks to 39%.
More details about the full moon are at Wikipedia
and, specifically about this eclipse, at Sky
& Telescope.
A final note: Thursday night's forecast for Rhode Island is "mostly
cloudy," so we may miss the show.
Link
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Kurt
Vonnegut: Strange Weather Lately. The essay is "adapted from
a Clemens Lecture presented in April for the Mark Twain House in Hartford,
Connecticut." It occasionally swoops back to Twain, but is more like
this:
The other day I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought
of our great victory over Iraq, and he said, “Mohammed Ali versus
Mr. Rogers.”
Link
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The
president's long, strange day on 9/11: From J.D.
Lasica, Senior Editor of Online
Journalism Review:
Here's the most comprehensive account I've seen of the timeline of
President Bush's movements and actions on 9/11, pieced together from
media accounts and public records by the Center
for Cooperative Research, an apparent advocacy group -- which doesn't
discount its reportage.
Journalist Ryan
Pitts, producer of The
Spokesman-Review.com in Spokane, Wash., blogs
at The Dead Parrot Society,
Honestly, I'm not sure what to do with this: An Interesting Day: President
Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11. The report, by the "Center
for Cooperative Reseach," attempts to use media reports to piece
together our government's response in the minutes and hours following
the terrorist attacks.
So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United
States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with
a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo
op? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even
asked Bush about it.
Bush's actions on September 11 have been the subject of lively debate,
mostly on the internet. Details reported that day and in the week after
the attacks - both the media reports and accounts given by Bush himself
- have changed radically over the past 18 months. Culling hundreds of
reports from newspapers, magazines, and the internet has only made finding
the "truth" of what happened and when it happened more confusing.
On the one hand, a quick scan of the "Center for Cooperative Reseach"
website makes the group's preconceptions patently clear. On the other
hand, this report is highly annotated, providing a glut of links to
media reports from which facts were gleaned. And the tone of the piece
is quite straightforward. It avoids conspiracy theories, and doesn't
paint Bush as a simpleton.
There's no denying that we don't know everything about our government's
response in times of crisis. And I think we can live with that. But
if our president was left relatively unprotected, in a publicized location,
unavailable to make decisions that only he could make, after we knew
about the attacks on our country ... that's something I think we should
know about. This report at least lays out the reasons for raising questions
that have hardly been asked.
It's good that we have enough distance now that such questions can again
be asked.
Link
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The
Matrix Reloaded FAQ to refresh your mind: From USA
Today,
It has been four years since The Matrix had audiences walking
out of theaters, rubbing their eyes and scratching their heads. Here's
a quick refresher course on the world created by writer/directors Andy
and Larry Wachowski:
What is The Matrix?
The Matrix is the world we live in — or think we live in. We
have all but lost a war with the supercomputers mankind built. The computers,
which use our bodies as a source of energy, have created a virtual-reality
program all humans are plugged into. We essentially live in a dream
state, interacting with one another and the world only in our minds
while we lie in pods, hooked up to cables and serving The Matrix like
a battery serves a flashlight. ...
Link
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Copy
Protection Is a Crime …against humanity. Society is based on
bending the rules: This editorial in Wired by David Weinberger (The
Cluetrain Manifesto, Small Pieces Loosely Joined) gets to the heart
of the problem with hard-coded Digital Rights Management:
If your lease stipulates that you can't paint without explicit permission
from your landlord, you will nevertheless patch up the scratches made
by your yappy little dog on the bottom of the front door. If the high-priced
industry analyst's report warns you on every page against duplicating,
you'll still hand out at your weekly sales meeting copies of a page
with a relevant chart. You'd snicker at the very suggestion of doing
otherwise.
But why? The analyst report is stamped 'DO NOT PHOTOCOPY', and the
bit in your lease about not painting really couldn't be any clearer.
We chuckle because we all understand that before the law there's leeway
- the true bedrock of human relationships. Sure, we rely on rules to
decide the hard cases, but the rest of the time we cut one another a
whole lot of slack. We have to. That's the only way we humans can manage
to share a world. Otherwise, we'd be at one another's throats all the
time - or, more exactly, our lawyers would be at each other's throats.
Yet we're on the verge of instituting digital rights management. What
do computers do best? Obey rules. What do they do worst? Allow latitude.
Why? Because computers don't know when to look the other way.
We're screwed. Not because we MP3 cowboys and cowgirls will not have
to pay for content we've been "stealing." No, we're screwed
because we're undercutting the basis of our shared intellectual and
creative lives. For us to talk, argue, try out ideas, tear down and
build up thoughts, assimilate and appropriate concepts - heck, just
to be together in public - we have to grant all sorts of leeway. That's
how ideas breed, how cultures get built. If any public space needs plenty
of light, air, and room to play, it's the marketplace of ideas.
Link
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Digital
Freedom Update: On a similar note, long-time Nashville journalist
Bill Hobbs blogs about a proposed law in Tennessee that would permit the
cable industry to declare the TiVo digital video recorder an "unauthorized"
device and apply civil and criminal proceedings to any consumer who uses
one.
How weird that, in the name of business competition, one company might
be able to have another company's product made illegal, and prosecute
the person who legally bought the first product. (Not coincidentally,
cable companies are debuting their own version of TiVo, ReplayTV, etc.)
The overwhelming majority of owners of Digital Video Recorders are not
making illegal copies, they're timeshifting: Recording shows that air
at inconvenient times, or while they're watching another show on another
channel. (As I've mentioned before, I own a Panasonic Showstopper that
came with a lifetime free subscription to nightly channel-listing updates.
They're no longer made, but can still be had on eBay.)
In addition, I record Pokemon for my grandson's visits, old episodes
of the Rockford Files for mindless relaxation, and Best of The
Joy of Painting to ease me into a nap -- the late Bob Ross's voice
talking about "happy little trees" puts me to sleep faster than
anything else.
In Sony
v. Universal City Studios in 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court held that
“time-shifting” of television and movies is a lawful Fair
Use, legalizing the VCR.
We also use this technology to pause live TV shows when the phone rings
or nature calls, and to show our own "instant replays" when
we missed a key moment in a show. And when we do that, yes, we can skip
ahead past the commercials in 30-second increments till we catch up with
the live broadcast.
From DigitalSpeech.org:
Your rights to use technology for your own purposes are under attack
by the entertainment industry. The Digital
Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says that you can't tape a CD if
the CD manufacturer tries to stop you. The Consumer
Broadband and Digital Television Protection Act attempted to force
manufacturers to cripple computers and stereos to prevent us from copying
songs and movies. Meanwhile, Representative Berman (Howard Berman,
R-NC) tried to empower Hollywood vigilantes to crack into your computer
if they suspect you of trading MP3s. Since these didn't become law,
the MPAA formed the Broadcast
Protection Discussion Group to coerce electronics companies to cripple
their products anyway. EFF
(Electronic Frontier Foundation) and FSF
(Free Software Foundation) were able to derail that effort, but
now state legislatures around the USA are passing so-called "super-DMCA"
technology control measures.
An educated state legislature is unlikely to accept the industry's attempt
to criminalize timeshifting and other convenient uses of techology. Teach
your lawmakers well.
Link
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May 13, 2003 6:55 p.m.
Online activism -- Pick your cause:
-- Stop
media deregulation by the FCC at moveon.org
On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission intends to lift restrictions
on media ownership that could allow your local newspaper, cable provider,
radio stations, and TV channels all to be owned by one company. The
result could be the disappearance of the checks and balances provided
by a competitive media marketplace -- and huge cutbacks in local news
and reporting. Good, balanced information is the basis for our democracy.
That's why we're asking that:
"Congress and the FCC should stop media deregulation and work
to make the media diverse, competitive, balanced, and fair."
Please join us below. We'll send your comments to your Representative
and your Senators. If you choose, they'll also be posted to the FCC's
public comments website. And we'll keep you posted about what more you
can do to support this campaign. This petition is an initiative of MoveOn.org,
Media Alliance, CodePink, United for Peace and Justice, and Global Exchange.
-- Tax
cuts: Today, moveon.org asks that you call or email your members
of Congress if you oppose the President's tax-cut plan. (Or you might
tell them you support it, if you do.)
--
For fuel-efficient cars
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as Senior Attorney of the Natural
Resources Defense Council, wants you to send a message to your senators
"to break the chain of America's dependence on imported oil."
Beneath his signature on the letter I saw is a link to BioGems,
an NRDC project that aims to save wild and endangered places.
-- Tell Congress
to let the U.N. take the lead in rebuilding Iraq. At truemajority.org;
Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's ice cream) will pay for the fax.
Link
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‘One
World’ music festival to be held at Bethel, N.Y. Speaking
of Ben... AP reports,
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A summer festival marking
the 25th anniversary of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is set for
Aug. 23-24 at the site of the historic Woodstock gathering in Bethel,
N.Y.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. plans to feature live music and
opportunities for social activism at its “One World, One Heart”
festival, which has taken place in Vermont since 1991.
Link
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 And
the new color of money is... pastel blue, peach and green with
copper highlights. Sherbet.
Link
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Blair which? It's confusing to have headlines
blaring "Blair..." and not know whether the story is about Tony
or Jayson, the disgraced New York Times reporter who for years quoted
people he had never met in places he never went.
E.R. Shipp, who, like Jayson Blair, is black, has an explanation for
his rise that rings true: The old-boy network embraced him.
The Pulitzer-prize winning Shipp herself worked for 13 years at the
Times, then at the Washington Post, now at the Daily News while she also
teaches at Columbia Grad School of Journalism.
Here's
her take: No, blame it on old boys' network
An old boys' system got Jayson Blair to the highest ranks of The New
York Times' national reporting staff. Now it's affirmative action that's
being blamed for his downfall. ...
Blair was known for "shmoozing with the right people," one
former Times editor told me. Shmoozing by the ambitious is what counts
- "no matter how screwed up they are," this editor said. Hey,
I know. I worked at The Times for 13 years. And the fact that I'm not
there is probably testament to my lack of talent for shmoozing. ...
The Times is being hysterical and hypocritical when it comes to Blair.
He was friendly with the guys who call the shots, and such guys, no
matter what their color or their competence, get ahead in this world.
It mattered not that he was black. He was one of the favorites. How
many of us can get away with half of our work product being defective?
Even now, senior editors and even the publisher cannot find it in themselves
to acknowledge that they were bamboozled and that their failure to adhere
to the standards they claim to follow condemns them as much as Blair.
But Blair was the kind of black guy who gets along well with the kind
of white bosses who want to think of themselves as color-blind and committed
to diversity - and the kind of black managers who have themselves played
the charm game to advance their careers. ...
Shmoozed his way to the top. Not what you can do, but who likes you.
Link
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 Butter
sculptures by Sharon
BuMann, a sculptor who also works in more traditional forms. I'm not
sure you can buy these, although, if you own a refrigerated display case,
anything is possible.
Link
to this item | Comment
A
TiVo Player for the Radio: At Wired,
These digital radio recorders, which can be preset to record a program
at a certain time, enable customers to record any radio program they
want and have it converted into a digital format. They then can listen
to the program or upload it onto a PC in a transferable file.
Like TiVo, the audio recorders will let customers fast-forward over
commercials -- although this isn't a feature the industry is actively
promoting.
"What you do with it is your own doing and there's nothing we
can do to stop you," said Bob Fullerton, director of marketing
for one of the manufacturers, PoGo
Products. "But the main use is not to skip commercials, but
to record your favorite talk-radio show or the ball game you're going
to miss because you are at work."
Fullerton's company has been taking orders for the Radio YourWay AM/FM
recorder, which costs $150. It's a palm-sized device that weighs 2.8
ounces and will arrive in computer stores later this month. The device
is primarily a radio and program recorder that converts files into a
digital format, Fullerton said. Secondly, it's an MP3 player, he said.
Digital
Innovations, another manufacturer, plans to release an updated version
of its Neuros
MP3 digital audio recorder in September.
Link
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Programming
101 is not about computers. It's radio guy Lou Josephs' one-man
course in the ways of commercial radio. Today, he looks at how music was
rotated before computers eliminated humans:
In the late 70's the research era was born. Hooks (the snips of songs
that contain the lyric or hook) were played to listeners who were recruited
by the research company. They were paid 25 dollars for rating the music,
probably about 800 to 1000 songs that they heard. This is called auditorum
music testing.
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More Oreos: BanTransfats.com
-- the folks who are suing Kraft/Nabisco -- "because it is targeting
its marketing of Oreo Cookies to young children. Oreo Cookies contain
partially hydrogenated soybean oil, a trans fat" -- offer an alternative:
Incidentally, there are several "Oreo" alternatives that
have no trans fat. Newman's "O" cookies contain no trans fat
and taste just as good as Kraft/Nabisco Oreo Cookies. An Oreo doesn't
need trans fat to taste great. (We have no relationship with the Newman
company or any other commercial interest.)
I've had these -- made by film star Paul
Newman's company. They're yummy.
Link
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May 12, 2003 6:22 p.m.
Confessions
of a former spammer: In the Portland Oregonian, a former policeman
tells exactly how he did it, and why he doesn't think proposed new laws
would stop him.
He said he made as much as $1,000 a week -- and could have raked in
a lot more if he hadn't quit the business in October, six months after
he started. The path to spamming success requires expensive investments
in software and the agility to adjust to the technological warfare between
spammers and companies that try to block their messages. It also requires
the stamina to withstand daily hate mail and even death threats.
Shiels decided a spamming career wasn't worth the personal cost. But
his story, which he agreed to share with The Oregonian, shows the challenge
that consumer advocates and government leaders face as they try eradicate
spam.
Link
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Another piece of the Iraqi blogger story: I
published my February email exchange with "Salam
Pax," the blogger who seems to be in Baghdad,
Lou Josephs added his bit of "Salamabilia," an exchange
about radio in Iraq about a month later:
Are people buying into or listening to Radio Sawa?
Sawa is a very clever radio station that is why it quickly became
a popular station in many arab states, the funny thing is Iraq is not
part of the coverage area, we don't get it very clearly. you know how
it started/ most people had no idea that it actually was VOA, because
the first couple of mpnths it was only broadcastibg music (arabic and
western, boybands silly ballads super sugary pop etc.)and only later
did it start it's propagandistic attack by then most people were hooked.
the US would do good for itself if it powered up its transmission, in
jordan it is crystal clear but in baghdad quite annoying. I don't listen
to it for news, many people do. thinly veiled propaganda really, but
yes people are listening to it.
BTW BBC World Service may go on strike.
wow, is this going to happen? over the war issue? or something else.
i hope they don't that would mean my morning fix of news would be gone.
Now that is a radio station MANY people listen to for serious news,
the world service has a huge audience and so does Radio Montecarlo,
better entertainment programming on Montecarlo.
I know other bloggers also had exchanges with him, but did not publish
them; no one wanted to be the one to offer clues to his identity that
might have landed him in hot water in Iraq.
Now that the anonymous blogger is apparently no longer in danger, I hope
others will publish their own little pieces of the "Salam Pax"
file -- a fascinating bit ofInternet history.
Related: Radio
Contests: Why you cant win, by the same Lou Josephs, who worked in
radio for a long time and at a lot of stations. He's lost without a spell-checker,
which he never needed on the radio.
Link
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Reassigned
diplomat wishes she could stay in Baghdad: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
talks with native daughter Barbara Bodine, whose stint as "mayor
of Baghdad" ended after three weeks. Bodine has been reassigned to
an advisory post at the State Department.
The situation in Baghdad is "very fragile," Bodine said.
"There is a security problem. The utilities are better but not
good. We have not been able to get the salary schedule approved. It's
getting much hotter, and we are only in May, and in another month this
place is going to be unbearable. You have things coming together, and
you don't have a clear political structure. That's a prescription for
something that's fragile.
"It doesn't have to fail, but I don't think anyone should say
we have a guarantee of success here yet. We have to be very conscious
of the job ahead. It's ambiguous and it's fluid. It's going to go backwards
every once in a while."
Some interesting details of her stay emerged:
She has been living and working in one of Saddam Hussein's ornate
palaces that had been taken over by the U.S. military.
Massive stone carvings of Saddam's head sit on the walls surrounding
the lush, landscaped palace grounds. The wall of the office that Bodine
used has a bullet hole, a sign of the fighting that took place there
during the war that ended April 9.
Bodine said that on Thursday, when the State Department notified her
she was leaving, she had just gotten glass in her office window and
running water in the building. She had been sleeping in the dust on
the floor and eating the military's MREs (meals ready to eat).
Bodine is a vegetarian. She said she does not eat red meat because
of her aversion to eating roasted goat in Yemen during her five years
as ambassador there.
Link
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The
Deepest Photo Ever Taken: Here's the
photo, astonishing in its size and clarity. (2400*3000, 800kb). The
story is from Sky & Telescope, with accompanying details of the photo
labeled:
May 7, 2003 | Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope's powerful
new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) have taken the deepest visible-light
image ever made of the sky.
The 3.5-day (84-hour) exposure captures stars as faint as 31st magnitude,
according to Tom M. Brown (Space Telescope Science Institute), who headed
the eight-person team that took the picture. This is a little more than
1 magnitude (2.5 times) fainter than the epochal Hubble Deep Fields,
which were made with the Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
It is 6 billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye.
via Robot Wisdom
Link
to this item | Comment
 Treasury
to unveil new $20 Tuesday: Bill
will feature color other than green as government looks to thwart counterfeiters.
CNN envisions the possiblities, at right, since the actual color of the
new money has not yet been announced.
Looks like Monopoly money, doesn't it?
Link
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Lawsuit
seeks to ban sale of Oreos to children in California: Nabisco taken
to task over trans fat's effects. In the San Francisco Chronicle today,
Oreo cookies should be banned from sale to children in California,
according to a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco attorney who claims
that trans fat -- the stuff that makes the chocolate cookies crisp and
their filling creamy -- is so dangerous children shouldn't eat it.
Stephen Joseph, who filed the suit against Nabisco last week in Marin
County Superior Court, is a public interest lawyer who last battled
the city to remove graffiti from traffic signs.
He took up the trans fat battle after reading about the dangerous artificial
fat in several stories published by The Chronicle that showed how trans
fat is hidden in many of the popular snack foods Americans eat. Joseph
also believes his father's death from heart disease was caused in part
by a lifelong diet of margarine and other foods made from trans fat.
The suit, the first of its kind in the country, asks for an injunction
ordering Kraft Foods to desist from selling Nabisco Oreo Cookies to
children in California, because the cookies are made with partially
hydrogenated vegetable oil, also called trans fat.
Partially hydrogenated oil is in about 40 percent of the food on grocery
store shelves, including most cookies, crackers and microwave popcorn,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But doctors and government researchers believe it is linked to several
debilitating diseases and might be one of the worst ingredients in the
American diet -- in part because we eat so much of it without knowing.
The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences,
last summer confirmed that trans fat is directly associated with heart
disease and increases in LDL cholesterol, the kind that can clog arteries.
Because of that, the institute report said there is no safe amount of
trans fat in the diet.
Link
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Mac
P2P Music Sharing with iTunes is Online: At Slashdot yesterday,
"Spymac.com
has already found a way to take the new features of iTunes 4 to new
heights. Today they opened up a new section on their site entitled Spymac
Music, which is a database of shared iTunes libraries. Anyone who
wants can submit their music library to be shared. Currently it sports
a search engine capable of searching title, album and artist. "
Link
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Operation
Strangelove:"Be part of a national anti-war action on May
14. Screen Dr.
Strangelove, and raise money for groups still working hard for
peace, justice and relief in Iraq. "
Link
to this item | Comment
Goal:
Get the lowest College Board scores ever: Colin Fahey got his
200s alright -- but he accidentally answered two questions correctly.
Link
to this item | Comment
Station
fire survivors launch fund to fill gap in relief efforts: Today
in The Providence Journal
(reg. req.)
Saying that those involved in The Station nightclub fire are "slipping
through the cracks" of current relief efforts, a coalition of family
members and survivors have formed their own assistance fund.
They are calling their organization
The Station Family Fund, and have applied for nonprofit status,
Jonathan Bell, a Providence lawyer who is assisting the group, said
Friday.
The fund will provide "prompt assistance" to victims and
family members for housing expenses, fuel bills, medical costs, car
payments, and groceries, said Victoria Potvin, a West Warwick resident
who was named president of The Station Family Fund. ...
Interesting:
If offered, the group would likely accept money from Great White, which
recently announced a charity tour: "They're musicians first,"
Potvin said, "and if this is the only way they know how to contribute,
to give back, who are we not to take the money? People need money."
One of the frustrations of the group has been that money cannot go directly
to survivors and the famlies of the deceased without their potentially
incurring tax liabilities.
Jody King, the vice president of the new Station Family Fund, said
the fund would also, under nonprofit rules, be unable to give money
out directly to families. But the process would be more intimate, he
said. If a mother called and said she needed groceries, "we would
take her to Stop & Shop." King said the Family Fund already
has $12,000, which has been kept in a safety deposit box until it was
organized.
There's more info and contact information on The
Station Family Fund website. (This item has also been added to The
Station Fire Weblog.)
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Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com |
