By Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
March 14, 2003 - (Last
week's weblog)
The
Station Fire web log has been updated.
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Slovenia
holds off U.S. convoys before U.N. word: Reuters reports that
another corner of the world says no.
LJUBLJANA, March 14 (Reuters) - Slovenia said on Friday it would hold
off on a U.S. request to transport military equipment through the tiny
Alpine country until the U.N. Security Council decided whether to use
force against Iraq.
"The Slovenian government will make no decision regarding this
request until a decision is reached by the Security Council," government
spokesman Gregor Krajc told Reuters.
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Chuckling
out loud: Tom
Matrullo has me giggling out loud with this one:
The US government has a new website,
http://www.ready.gov. It's another attempt at scare mongering in
the style of the old "duck and cover" advice after WWII.
The fun thing is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean
anything! Here are a few interpretations.
The captions alone are funny:
• If you spot a terrorist arrow, pin it against the wall with
your shoulder
• If you are sprayed with an unknown substance, stand and think
about it instead of seeing a doctor.
• The proper way to eliminate smallpox is to wash with soap,
water and at least one(1) armless hand.
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Pentagon
rules for the news media: J.D. Lasica points to an Adobe PDF file
whose formal subject is PUBLIC AFFAIRS GUIDANCE (PAG) ON EMBEDDING MEDIA
DURING POSSIBLE FUTURE OPERATIONS/DEPLOYMENTS IN THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMANDS
(CENTCOM) AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (AOR).
Related: Department
of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Another pdf.
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Pentagon
threatens to kill independent reporters in Iraq:
The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions
of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent,
Kate
Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned
about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon
officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."
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Photos of the day: Judy
Watt, whose blog this year is only about art, points to Photography
by Alex Robinson, mostly travel photos, from Bali
to Burning
Man. Here's Judy's
Picture of the Moment.
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Quick links:
CNN correspondent
Kevin Sites blogs from Kuwait.
The
Iraqi Internet
Bush
Eats the Press
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Vigils update: At
globalvigil.org, 3,856 vigils have been scheduled in 109 countries
for Sunday night at 7. That's about 1,500 more than yesterday in 21 more
countries.
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March 13, 2003
Global vigils,
local vigils: Beginning in New Zealand, candles will be lit around
the world in a wave Sunday as the local time reaches 7 p.m.; the candlelight
peace vigil has been organized by MoveOn.org and the Win Without War coalition,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many faith-based organizations.
If you're in Providence, you can join others on the mall side
of the State House lawn. In Jamestown, a vigil is planned at East
Ferry, Conanicus Ave. and Narragansett Ave. In Tiverton, meet at
the Amicable Congregational Church United Church of Christ, 3736 Main
Road. In Newport, at Washington Square. In Westerly, at
the downtown Westerly post office, Broad St. (Rte. #1).
Or you can go to globalvigil.org,
type your zip code into a form and find vigils within whatever radius
of your house you're willing to drive. If you like, you may start one
in another place.
In a rolling count, so far, 2,339 vigils have been scheduled in 88 countries,
according to the site. That number changes every time I check the site.
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Bush
Sr warning over unilateral action: This is what Molly
Ivins today calls an underreported story. George H.W. Bush, the president's
father, spoke at Tufts University near Boston Feb. 26, but the Boston
Globe story has a second-hand feel to it, focusing more on a few protestors
than on the meaning of the speech. There are more quotes in the Tufts
Journal and below, in the London Times on Monday,
...THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in
the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by
international unity.
Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War,
Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations
a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will
of the United Nations.
He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges,
advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France
and Germany.
"You've got to reach out to the other person. You've got to convince
them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity," he
said.
The former President's comments reflect unease among the Bush family
and its entourage at the way that George W. Bush is ignoring international
opinion and overriding the institutions that his father sought to uphold.
Mr Bush Sr is a former US Ambassador to the UN and comes from a family
steeped in multi-lateralist traditions.
Although not addressed to his son in person, the message, in a speech
at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was unmistakeable. Mr Bush Sr
even came close to conceding that opponents of his son's case against
President Saddam Hussein, who he himself is on record as loathing, have
legitimate cause for concern.
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Osama
is not spelled "S-a-d=d-a-m": Speaking of Ivins, in
the same column she faults the media for failing to educate the American
public on the most basic facts about the conflict with Iraq:
According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS, 42 percent
of Americans believe Saddam Hussein of Iraq was personally responsible
for the attacks on the World Trade Center, something that has never
even been claimed by the Bush administration. ...
This is how well journalism has done its job in the months leading
up to this war. A disgraceful performance.
Do these 42 percent also believe that terrorism will end if Saddam is
"removed"?
Related: Matt
Taibbi, writing in the New York Press, is mad as hell at the White
House press corps.
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Cheney
is still paid by Pentagon contractor: Guardian (U.K.) reports,
Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's
contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding
for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments
to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.
The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure
statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation" of up
to $1 million a year.
Again, our news comes to us from England.
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Are
bloggers journalists? This is the question print reporters often
focus on when writing about bloggers. If you rephrase it as, "Is
writing journalism?" the issue loses its murk.
J.D. Lasica, senior editor of Online Journalism
Review, tackles it in remarks he prepared -- and subsequently blogged
-- for last Sunday's panel discussion on Old vs. New Journalism at the
10th annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. There's lots
of good thinking here -- he titles it "random acts of journalism"
-- but here's the nut, the answer to the Big Question:
What does it take to be an online journalist? You don't need a professional
publication with a slick Web site behind you, though it doesn't hurt.
All you really need is a computer, Internet connection, and an ability
to perform some of the tricks of the trade: report what you observe,
analyze events in a meaningful way, but most of all, just be honest
and tell the truth....
...We need to get away from the notion that journalism is a priesthood
that's inaccessible to the masses. The No. 1 rule of journalism, really,
is simply this: Tell the truth. Report something as accurately and faithfully
as possible. Can bloggers tell the truth? I suspect so. Over time, they
build up a track record, much as any news publication does when it starts
out. Reputation filters and circles of trust in the blogosphere help
weed out the nonsense. We all need to fine-tune our bullshit meters.
But as one someone once said of the blogging masses, "We can fact-check
your ass."
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Mozilla
1.3 released: Out of beta, here are the open-source browser's
newest features: Mozilla Mail has junk-mail classification -- you can
train it to recognize spam; newsgroups can have filters; images can toggle
between full size and window-size, no matter what size the window; switch
user profiles on the fly; rich text editing, and performance fixes. More
release
notes.
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"My
Own Self" the Self-Portraits of Asya Schween:
Asya, an exchange student from Russia doing postgraduate work in Applied
Mathematics at the University of Southern California, has more than a
hundred amazing, mostly disturbing self-portraits on her web site. There's
an interview
with her at Digital Photography Review along with a selection of her
photos.
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The
Bob Lancaster Gallery of Unusual Playing Cards: Great small art,
lots of decks.
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The
dancing plant: "Darwin was obsessed by it, although
even he never trained his weedy Asian shrub to twitch its leaves to the
sound of music. But in a small town in northern Thailand ... " At
Salon (This story doesn't seem to require watching an ad.)
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"Copyright-free"
peace posters: Professionals donate their work. The site states,
" ' Copyright-free' means you can add in your own information, or
even print this art commercially." You might see some at one of the
candlelight peace vigils Sunday night.
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March 12, 2003
I'm back -- after two days nowhere near a computer, thanks to the
International Women's Media Foundation. Scrambling now, though.
Second
Foreign Service officer resigns in protest over Iraq: GovExec.com
reports,
John Brown, a veteran of more than two decades in the Foreign Service,
informed Secretary of State Colin Powell in a letter Monday that he
was leaving the department immediately "because I cannot in good conscience
support President Bush's war plans against Iraq." He joins a fellow
Foreign Service officer, John
Brady Kiesling, who also resigned this month in protest of the administration's
policy.
In an interview Wednesday with Government Executive, Brown said the
Bush administration is pursuing a narrow-minded strategy in Iraq, jeopardizing
relationships with long-time allies around the world.
"The failure to imagine what other people might think" of U.S. policy,
Brown said, "is absolutely parochial in its assumptions." Brown said
the administration has taken the stance that "if [other nations] don't
think like us, there's something wrong with them, or they're evil."
Brown, who is 54 and has spent most of his 22-year Foreign Service
career in Eastern Europe and Russia, said the U.S. has done long-lasting
damage to its relations with Europe. "I think it's going to take years
to fix this," he said. "In the long term, it's a failure to recognize
that we're just one nation among nations; we're not the center of the
universe." ...
Here's John
Brown's letter of resignation.
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Cool colleagues we've never met: Four big boxes
of edible goodies arrived at the Journal newsroom today, sent by the newsroom
staff of The Daily
Oklahoman -- an Oklahoma City group that knows how grueling it is
to cover a crisis. Their gift was meant to help fortify those covering
The Station nightclub fire and its aftermath.
The chocolate and cookies are going fast, but there'll be popcorn, instant
oatmeal, just-add-water noodles, crackers and candy canes for the night
staff.
The booty was accompanied by a giant card that read "Thinking of
you... From the newsroom of The Daily Oklahoman" signed by more than
50 staffers, some of whom added little messages of encouragement.
We're amazed, and grateful for the gesture.
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Wi-Fi spreads: Dan
Gillmor blogging at the San Jose Mercury news: "The T-Mobile
HotSpot Fujitsu Promotion announced today is a smart move. I wonder
if there's some fine print attached to this offer, however."
While I was away yesterday, he also noted that McDonald's and Intel have
leapt in: "Anyone who was doubting the increasing reach of Wi-Fi
should note that the push to install hot spots now includes
McDonald's (AP) fast-food restaurants. The announcement is timed to
coincide with Intel's massive
new campaign (Cnet) to make wireless a core part of computing. It's
yet more evidence of an unstoppable trend.
Related: Free
Wireless on Newbury Street. Wired reports,
Tech Superpowers, a Boston-based Apple reseller, is building a small,
high-speed Wi-Fi network for local residents. Bostonians get to log
on for free, as long as they put up with a pop-up advertisement every
three to four hours.
Michael Oh's car is nicknamed the 'WarCar.' He has hooked it up as
a wireless Internet hub. He parks it along Newbury Street in Boston's
Back Bay neighborhood.Michael Oh is providing wireless Internet access
for free to wireless-enabled people in Boston.
The network, NewburyOpen.net, stretches for about three-quarters of
the length of Newbury Street, a busy thoroughfare in the center of town
known as Boston's Rodeo Drive.
Let's hope the idea travels south. Soon.
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Beastie
Boys free mp3 download:
In A World Gone Mad
At beastieboys.com,
band members explain the song. Adam Horovitz writes,"This song is
not an anti-American or pro-Saddam Hussein statement. This is a statement
against an unjustified war."
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March 11 - Off staff.
March 10, 2003 - Special addition
American woman to replace Saddam in Baghdad? Blogger "Salam Pax" in Baghdad
writes the the BBC World Service radio is reporting,
The plan calls for a northern and southern sector to be administered
by two retired U.S. Army generals, sources said. A central sector, including
Baghdad, will be administered by Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador
to Yemen, the sources said.
CNN and Reuters also reported the story. Today's edition of The Age
(in Australia, where it's already Monday) publishes:
Diplomat tipped to replace Saddam
March 10 2003
By David Wastell
London
An American diplomat with a taste for danger and an ambition to advance
the cause of Arab women has been earmarked by the Pentagon to run Baghdad
after the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
Barbara Bodine, 54, who in previous postings to the Middle East survived
an aircraft hijacking, a 137-day embassy siege and risky negotiations
with terrorists, has been asked to return to the city where she once
served as a junior diplomat - this time as its interim governor until
a new Iraqi government is set up. Ms Bodine was recalled from a sabbatical
at the University of California last week to serve as the senior civilian
on the Pentagon taskforce that is charged with the reconstruction of
Iraq.
"Salam Pax" (which means "Peace Peace" in Arabic and Latin, respectively)
links to Bodine's State Department bio, and a photo of her, which he has shown to friends.
General reactions? You can imagine the fear of castration the Iraqi
males are going thru at the moment, dont expect this to be swallowed
very easily, and to divert this unease they would just say something
along the lines: she doesnt look very pretty does she?. One person
who doesnt actually work here but was dragged by a colleague to see
the picture said: you know it is their intention to destroy the pride
of the muslim man . Tread carefully is what I say; change shouldnt
be plunked on peoples heads like this, especially when there already
is an atmosphere of mistrust and unfriendliness.
Whew.
Pax adds,
Someone said this will be like having another Gertrude Bell, I am not
sure this is good. [two interesting links: The female Lawrence of Arabia and the Gertrude Bell Project
with an amazing photo library...
Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com |
