connecting*the*dots

I Want Change, originally uploaded by davidcharding.

The man seems to have the golden touch on draft night; first with Michael Jordan, then working a deal to land Richard Jefferson and most recently finding Nenad Kristic on the other side of the planet.

Rod wouldn’t select a Yinka Dare or Rex Walters with a first-round pick.

I have to be honest, I missed out on much of the college basketball season last year, so while I’m familiar with Williams and Boone to a degree — I’ve caught them here and there while following my Syracuse squad — I don’t have too much to go on regarding the particulars of their games over a long stretch of time.

Not that such details would stop me from giving my opinion:

Marcus Williams is the real-deal point guard — a court visionary (not many college PG’s average better than 8 dimes per) and steps-up big time in clutch situations. Unfortunately, he’s also (reportedly) out-of-shape, under-motivated and (legitimately) guilty of participating in the theft and sale of four laptops on the UConn campus his junior year.

His own mother had to move across country to live with him to get his shit straight.

If he can get his head out of his ass, and take his career responsibilities seriously, he’s projected as a top-notch guard in the NBA. With JKidd as a mentor, well, he’s in a perfect position to succeed, as he has the opportunity for big-time minutes next year. I’m betting he’s worth the gamble.

Josh Boone was probably the best PF available at #23, and the Nets are desperate for size and shot-blocking, so he’ll get some run as a rookie.

I’m just hoping he doesn’t turn out to be another Jason Collins.

It’s reported that he has decent hands, can finish around the basket, rebounds well and is a shot blocker, but he also has a reputation for being soft, a poor free throw shooter and has no offensive game — very much like Collins. Thankfully he’ll have Kidd and Williams getting him the ball in a position to finish, so as long as his hands are good and he can finish over another big, his limited offensive skills shouldn’t be too much of a burden.

IMHO, Hassan Adams is a great pick for a late second round selection. He’s an energy guy, can score in bunches, rebounds well for his size; he actually reminds me of Stevie Thompson, the 6 foot 2 inch G/F from Syracuse back in the late eighties. He may not have a specific position on the floor, but he can ball and Lawrence Frank likes to go to a small line-up from time to time. Between him and Antoine Wright, the Nets look to have a nice, athletic 2nd team rotation (later, Zoran). Hopefully he can bring an on-court attitude the Nets have missed since the departure of Kenyon Martin.

Man, we’re only a week beyond the end of the NBA season, and I’m already jonesin’ for the start of next year.

Back in February, NBC made a completely bonehead business move by making YouTube take down the hugely popular video short Lazy Sunday. My instant response was to fire off a salvo at NBC for being old media ogres (NBC: We Get Web 2.0… Sike!) and not working within the limitless parameters of the web to strike a business deal that suits their needs to protect their copyright, while allowing us to continue to enjoy their content when we want and how we want.

Well, today NBC announced that it’s embracing a few of the ideas I previously lobbed into play:

[…]

“Under the deal, YouTube will create a separate channel for NBC video, so that visitors can easily pull up the half-dozen or more items that NBC plans to offer at any given time. It will be similar to channels that other companies, filmmakers and everyday users create.

[…]

NBC and YouTube officials acknowledged the possibility that fans will reject the clips if they appear simply as promotions, but YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said fans would likely embrace the video if it is compelling and not available anywhere else.”

[…]

Promotional video is somewhat of a start — I suppose you can’t expect major change from a major television network without them testing the water first. Give the experiment a few months; if uptake begins across numerous types of unbundled content, I’m sure they’ll be banging on YouTube’s door, attempting more creative ways to “let” people upload their content.

Affecting The Interface

In terms of the user experience, I only ask one thing of YouTube: please refrain from creating a pulldown of “channels” on your interface.

Asking people to assign ripped video to a “media channel” in the upload process makes sense:

• It alerts you (YouTube) to content that needs to be assigned a “shared monetization flag” and
• It automatically assigns network metadata to the video object to help people finding content they desire

Balancing the two-way participation of a user base with the business opportunities of old media is a difficult conversation to manage and execute, for if you transform your main interface too far towards the navigation of paid-for, primary channels, the entire participatory, community vibe will begin to deteriorate.

Remember, your brand is YouTube.

With all of the unconferences popping up on the geek landscape, one has to assume that conference formats outside the technology community will slowly but steadily begin to loosen up a bit.

Thankfully, my favorite conference (TED) is making a move in that direction with TEDTalks.

TED is now releasing their talks, one per-week, under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to digest the talks and republish them for non-commercial purposes. I’ve just subscribed to their RSS feed (you can choose between the post, video, audio and email newsletter).

You still have to be invited to attend TED, the price tag remains +$4,000 and the format of the conference itself hasn’t changed, but it’s a great move for them to remove the walls and let us common folk listen in on the happenings.

Thank you.

If you’re in SF, check it out if you can (trailer).

No matter your position on this war or war in general, it’s an amazingly honest narrative… one that’s hard to capture, even through traditional channels of documentary filmmaking.

San Francisco
Free Screening Tonight! 7:30PM.
Castro Theatre (Directions)
429 Castro Street

To get your free ticket, please RSVP to screening@thewartapes.com with subject “War Tapes Screening/SF” and your full name in the body of the email. The free tickets are being given out on a first-come first-served basis, so RSVP now! If you are bringing a friend, copy them in the email and put their name in the email as well.

Red state / blue state political maps now have a behavioral map to further support the simplistic notions of a two-party system!

Don’t get me wrong, I find the visceral imprint of this study from the school of information at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor fascinating, but I’m hoping that as we further our attempts to understand one another through similar human behavior studies using our interactions on the web, we’ll look to use less obvious attributes than political party affiliations as a control.

Editor & Publisher Staff
Iraqi Death Toll Over 50,000, ‘L.A. Times’ Reveals

At least 50,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, have died violently since the 2003 U.S. invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies, the Los Angeles Times reports today. This is “a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration,” the newspaper declares.

“The toll, which is dominated by civilians but probably also includes some security forces and insurgents, is daunting: Proportionately, it’s as if 600,000 Americans had been killed nationwide during the last three years,” the Times observes.

In the same period, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, including four today and 18 or more this week.

“Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but have not been counted because of serious lapses in recording the number of deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide,” the Times relates.

Health Ministry figures for May shows the rate of war-related deaths nearly tripling nationwide, from 334 in May 2004 to 1,154 last month.

“The documented cases show a country descending further into violence,” the Times concludes.

“At the Baghdad morgue, the vast majority of bodies processed had been shot execution-style. Many showed signs of torture — drill holes, burns, missing eyes and limbs, officials said. Others had been strangled, beheaded, stabbed or beaten to death.”

Am I the only one blown away by that proportionality statement? To the rest of the world, and any American with a soul not obfuscated by their political or sovereignty lens, the number serves as the exact degree to which the US has responded to the 3,000+ death count of 9/11/2001. 200 times over…

And we’re in for The Long War?

It’s sick.

Why not?

Evelyn Roth, TV Trap (1973)

Joe Malia, Memoirs of a Computer Obsessive (2006)

(via BoingBoing)

(photo by Lasagna Boy)

Vernon’s made a new buddy-in-hate, good ol’ boy Rush Limbaugh… and he’s bubbling over with joy. Hmm.. let me try to recreate the vibe of Vern’s email newsletter for you:

RUSH: You’ve gotta hear this campaign commercial. There’s a man running for office as a Republican, running for Congress in … North Carolina. His name is Vernon Robinson. The audio is what we have here, obviously. The video to his commercial is … on his website. (Laughing.) I don’t even want to characterize it. Just listen to this commercial.

RUSH: Goes out with Leave It To Beaver music. I should point out Vernon Robinson is black, and when he mentions Sharpton and Jackson — have you seen the spot? When he gets to Jackson, he found a mug shot of Jesse Jackson and that’s what he runs and he found a picture of Sharpton with an Afro from years and years ago. (Laughing.) This is a national campaign. I mean, he’s talking about national issues. They all have impact locally, but I thought it was the Democrats that were going to nationalize the election this year! I thought Democrats were going to do that. That is Vernon Robinson who is running for Congress … He’s getting grief like you can’t believe. This is one of the best political ads in a long, long time, and can I ask you: When you heard that, folks, when you heard that, weren’t you going, “Yeah! Okay, yeah, yeah,” and, “Why don’t more Republicans talk like this? Why don’t more of them say these are the problems that we face?” And here’s Vernon Robinson in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, saying: I’m a pioneer, and I will take the arrows.
…

RUSH: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - this is Jean. Welcome to the program.

JEAN: Well hello, mega dittos. … I wanted to say Vernon is a man.

RUSH: Do you know Vernon Robinson?

JEAN: No. I don’t know him personally. I just love his ah what can you say. He stands for something, regardless.

RUSH: Yes he does.

JEAN: I love a man. That’s my man.

RUSH: He stands for a lot of things.

JEAN: Yes. Besides yourself, that’s one I wouldn’t mind marrying.

RUSH: (Laughing) … I’ll tell you what’s do. She’s calling about an ad. Vernon Robinson is running for Congress as a Republican in … North Carolina. He has one of the best television ads out there in a long time. We have the audio to it. We are going to link to this at rushlimbaugh.com, link to his website because the video of this ad will start playing automatically once you log on to his website. … We mention Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in this ad. And the picture of the Reverend Jackson in this ad is his mugshot. … The picture of the Reverend Sharpton is back in the big jewelry, big hair, heavier days. I think he’s got a medallion on. He’s wearing a cleric’s collar …

RUSH: And of course it concludes with Leave it to Beaver type music. That is just a great, great ad. And by the way, again we were told the Democrats are going to be running a national campaign in their House races this year. Sounds to me like Vernon Robinson, who is black by the way, and he is a target now, they are targeting this guy like - he’s going to be targeted not to the extent Clarence Thomas was — but maybe Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann. This is, I mean pardon the French here, this is off the plantation. He has escaped and wandered off the liberal Democrat plantation. This is not allowed. This is not permitted. If they could, they’d grab this guy and send him to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and let Hillary as Nurse Ratchet try to get his mind right. Either that or send him to the warden in Cool Hand Luke and put him in the box. I can’t tell you folks. This wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. You wouldn’t have had a black … congressional candidate in North Carolina running a spot like this. And mocking the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton. But it’s a new day out there. Vernon Robinson, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
…

RUSH: Folks, don’t panic out there. Vernon Robinson’s website is not broken. The link is not broken. We’ve just shut down their server. We’ve overloaded the server at the Vernon Robinson campaign site where we’ve got the link posted to see his great TV ad. Just be patient. And as people get in and get out of there, the traffic will subside and you will be able to get in. But the site’s working fine. We’ve sent more people than their server can handle and this happens, we shut down servers routinely on this program.

Without your immediate financial support, Vernon cannot create new ads and put them on TV and radio! Please help Vernon make more ads that Rush Limbaugh says every Republican should be using.

Limbaugh played the Robinson ad twice. It was almost as if he was thinking, “Yeehaw! Someone else can hate more than me!” Remember kids, free speech is a beautiful thing, as it can help us find the bigots amongst us!

So much for trying.

Look, I’m not trying to force an opinion on anyone. It’s a well-known fact that in the very least, the Greensboro Police Department did not protect and serve its community on 11/3/79 — specifically, Morningside Homes and numerous other Greensboro residents who collected that morning to protest with the CWP (an organization armed with a location specific, city-sanctioned march permit).

Over the last month or so, conversations around town surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report — with a subsequent recommendation for the city to apologize for its role in the escalation of violence — has numerous residents and/or neighbors of Greensboro heroically trying to sweep that historical fact under the rug.

Completely blind to the negative, residual effects of 11/3/79 on other people within their own community — voices who have been silenced over the years and up through this loud and conflicting debate of privileged people on computers — people valiantly press on:

• meblogin: “How about nobody apologizes and Greensboro continues to be a great place where a horrid event took place?”…
• Dr. Mary Johnson: …”Hey Bubba, let’s you and me take off the albatross, go pay that cover and get some nice Southern iced tea. Not San Francisco, not Boston, not Seattle, not New York City tea. But good old-fashioned Greensboro, North Carolina iced tea. And let’s talk about something else.”
• Jeffrey Sykes: …”I’d dare say you and Andy and Sean and the TRC process have done more to hurt the national image of your city by ripping open a healed wound just to see what would happen.”…

The details behind the 11/3/79 incident were already well documented in literature, long before the initiation of the TRC process or the release of the report and recommendations.

From the May 2001 anthology entitled, Police Brutality:

[…]

Perhaps the worst incident occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, where five members of the Communist Workers Party were murdered by Klansmen and Nazis during an anti-Klan demonstration.

Not only did the Greensboro police know of the Klan’s plan to attack the demonstration but, just minutes before the confrontation, nearly all on-duty officers were called to the other side of town for a “lunch” break. When the shooting stopped, there was not a cop in sight.

Although the entire episode was caught on videotape, the all-White jury concluded that there was insufficient evidence to convict anyone.

[…]

Sorry folks, but the facts are out there for the world to see and they have been for years. You’d be dumbstruck by the sheer amount of evidence of police wrong-doing you could find in the Chapel Hill library.

Non-privileged folk in our community, such as former residents of Morningside — people who were most affected by the uncontested crossfire of hate on 11/3/79 and similar attitudes of institutional indifference that exists today — have already ingrained the details surrounding the event into their psyche long ago.

And I’d bet that image ain’t too pretty, either.

Examples of outside-the-community crafted literature and mounds of evidence available to the public is simply icing on the cake.

To me, it’s clear that city leadership, as a majority, doesn’t care at all about these ingrained attitudes, so my blunt question for you — my fellow residents and neighbors of Greensboro (online) — is do you give two shits?

Because, while over time this conversational meme may putter out online and people will go back to focusing on their own lives, getting ready for back to school specials and the eventual holiday shopping season, this moment is our opportunity to approach these issues, out in the open, in an honest discussion to bridge even broader issues that currently affect all residents of Greensboro proper.

For if we continue with these attitudes, and life returns to “normal” for the majority of us, the streets of Greensboro — especially the ones less traveled by you or me — will continue to whisper, edify and drift apart.