ChrisB on Oct 24 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Former head of FEMA Michael Brown, now has a blog. And you’ll pardon me for saying but (outside aesthetics which don’t matter a whole lot to me) I find myself liking a lot of his posts! Read some for yourself.
(HT – Megan)
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Sep 01 2008 | Filed under: Technology
Bob from Brockley linked to ASHC:
He’s not alone either. Ah the good old days of blogging about détente and Vietnam on ARPANET…or perhaps a slight Technorati bug.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Aug 14 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
There’s a certain problem in that the folks who protest most vociferously about the Bush administration’s violations of free speech rights, also tend to support the direct government regulation of political speech. A disturbing poll suggests they may have the wind at their back, with 47% (a plurality) supporting federal regulation of political content on television and radio, with 31% (a minority), supporting the same for blogs. Needless to say, this is an abhorrent finding.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Aug 03 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
What would have happened if in the 1960s you’d given every Soviet citizen his own printing press and free access to a global publishing distribution network? Couldn’t have good for the Politburo is my thinking. Thus it’s profoundly encouraging reading Magda Abu-Fadil on the explosion of blogging and social networking in the Arab world.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Feb 07 2008 | Filed under: Blogs, Culture, Lee's Page, Media
image: Dead Central (see alternate posters at ZNN)
George Romero is evidently taking on the dynamics of social networking and new media culture, in his latest apocalyptic zombie film . George, in an interview for the AP:
“If Hitler were alive today, he wouldn’t have to stand out in that square. He could just put out a blog and he’d have millions of followers. It’s completely uncontrolled. It’s not information, it’s opinion. And it’s scary. You can get an audience no matter what your opinion is.”
“There is serious debate going on, but most of it, and the stuff that people are attracted to, is in some way entertainment. Is Michael Moore an honest documentarian? Honestly? I don’t think he is. … The real discussion gets left behind the entertainment value.”
(Associated Press)
Romero’s zombie films have always been built around a caustic social allegory. Critical themes have ranged from racism to consumerism to xenophobia. However, I guess we bloggers are now in the crosshairs eh? Should be fun to see us getting metaphorically devoured.
Sphere: Related ContentLance on Jan 31 2008 | Filed under: Blogs, Lance's Page, Technology
When I finish typing this and hit publish, the blog will send out a ping, and then the enters the strange ecosystem of the internet:
Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you’ve written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers.
Click here for a interactive, graphic picture of this strange world.
Sphere: Related ContentPeg on Jan 22 2008 | Filed under: Election 2008, Health Care, Media, Society
Earlier in the day, you might have been wondering how much of your assets might melt away, as markets around the world gyrated with perceived increasingly negative news. Later, on political blogs everywhere, reports that Fred Thompson was ending a run for his party’s nomination.
Then, news that a young and successful actor had died, most likely from a drug overdose.
Usually my evenings are a strange brew of real estate work, reading blogs, playing or watching bridge online, editing photographs, and so forth. In the background, talking heads on the various political shows fill me in on what has happened during the day – occasionally inducing some mental error while I compete!
Tonight, I thought that a majority of these shows would be devoted to discussing the future for Republicans now that Fred was dropping out.
Wrong!
Oh, yes; Thompson got some time. But – just as on the Internet (Fred; 174 hits; Heath Ledger, over 1,800) – almost all the focus was the death of Ledger.
Please do not misunderstand me. The death of a vibrant young person is a terrible tragedy. I myself have faced the illness of addiction in my own family, and words can barely express the pain and the awful outcomes that it can produce.
Still. On political cable channels, would one expect hour upon hour of focus about a movie star, rather than on the people who will soon lead our country? I would not – but – once again, I prove myself to be a poor prognosticator of what might occur.
Back to the politics. Fred wasn’t “my guy” (Rudy was and is). Yet, Thompson would have been “my guy” had he gotten the nomination. Smart, humble, straightforward, intelligent … I particularly loved when he stood up to that ridiculous interviewer in Iowa, who wanted him to state in one or two words what he thought about some of the most important issues facing us. He wouldn’t do it. If Fred couldn’t have the opportunity to really explain his viewpoint – at least 30 or 45 seconds! – well then, he would not play along.
I wish we had more like him.
And, as long as I am wishing, I wish that whoever does get the nod to be our next president might have some insight about addiction. The War on Drugs and “Just Say No” have been sad failures. I don’t know the answers. I only hope that others may have a glimmer of a solution.
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
Multinational Force-Iraq
QandO
Marginal Revolution
Robby’s Last FM Journal
The Volokh Conspiracy
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