connecting*the*dots

Up next, Matt Hill Band.

Come on down!

(shot by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

So the world has woken up and discovered Twitter.

I’m not gonna front, I’ve only been Twittering for a few months now. I sat on the sidelines for the last year or so and watched Tara and Chris pimp it, but I just couldn’t figure out how it fit into my world.

Well, I think I’ve finally got it… and then some.

While a bunch of people out west have large numbers of close friends that use Twitter incessantly, I don’t. Most of my peeps from the NYC and Greensboro area don’t view communicative technology through quite the same lens as left coasters (we’re all a step or two behind on that front). So my friend list — while filled with people I consider to be friends — aren’t folk that I know extremely well or interact with on a daily basis.

So I’m now getting a chance to familiarize myself with colleagues from both across the country and the other side of the world.

That’s actually quite cool.

Sure, sometimes their Twitters are as dumb as mine, but that just gives me more insight into their varied personalities. Those Twitts about eating PB&J or screaming at a cabbie only confirms that we’re more alike than different. And when they do drop science and briefly enlighten the world as to what they’re working on, well, that’s the gold mine of Twitter.

Chris Messina stuck that nugget of a thought in my head the last time we hung out at Citizen Summit. He implored me to use Twitter and keep him (and anyone else following me) in the know with what I was doing with The People, Yes.

The conversation got even deeper once we all started discussing ways to bridge the digital divide locally, and before I knew it, I was thinking about Twitter implementation within the TPY interface.

So check this out:

That’s a John Ford special for you.

He took Alex King’s Twitter Tools beta plug-in, tweaked the partially functional plug-in code to post Twitters to my Wordpress blog with an appended category and styled the category with a CSS class.

So now every time I SMS to 40404, not only do I add to the stream of consciousness on Twitter, I’m documenting those fleeting thoughts straight to my blog.

The term “live blogging” just evolved big time overnight, as did “citizen journalism” (and if they’re smart, so will the “mainstream media“).

Now imagine how this could impact folk on the other side of the digital divide — people without moment to moment access to laptops or desktop computers, but armed to the teeth with cell phones.

Did I mention that John Ford is the man?

Lisa turned me onto the group a few months back, so I’ve been dropping landscape shots into the group here and there ever since. This week my number came up:

If you’re in NC and want to contribute shots to NPR’s The State of Things, join their flickr group and follow the minimal instructions.

Enjoy!

JR and Marco on the Face2Face project:

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t find a way to get along together.

We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement.

This holy place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families.

A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him.

It’s obvious, but they don’t see that.

We must put them face to face. They will realize.

We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.

The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.

(via Say No to Crack)

(originally uploaded by Major Clanger)

Democracy by any other name.

(originally uploaded by MatthewBradley)

From an email I received the other day:

[…] “Our hope is to learn things that we can pass along to other people doing civil disobedience — turn this whole experience into a template that will make it easier for the next round. Our inspiration is the “barefoot lawyer” movement in China and Uganda.” [..]

- Liz Seymour -

Liz was one of the brave group of local protesters that were arrested at the Greensboro anti-surge rally a few months back. After I read Isabella’s post about why she decided to be arrested, I immediately signed up to grab the bus down to DC for the protest in late January.

On the way back from the march I met Liz for the first time.

We’ve gotten to know each other a bit more over the past few weeks at the Monday night Food not Bombs dinner for the homeless at the Greensboro Public Library. You see, Liz spends her days walking the walk — living in a collective house with six friends while making meals all week for folk around town who might otherwise go without.

Yeah, I can already hear what that little voice is saying in the back of your head:

“What a hippie!”

You need to tell that voice to shut the fuck up.

If you’d like to meet some real people — people who both stand up for what they believe in and live their lives accordingly — Liz and her co-defendants plan on holding a rally and press conference at 5pm outside the Greensboro courthouse tomorrow following their trial for civil disobedience.

Good luck, Liz, Isabella and everyone else involved.

Everyone.

(originally uploaded by Mute*)

Two years ago this Saturday, I was having my final “meeting” at Ameritrade. This March 17th, I’ll be spending my entire day over at M’Coul’s Pub celebrating… beer.

Yeah, life is good is like that.

I’ll be partaking in the festivities (courting my precious, Guinness) and pitching in both as a crowd clearer for the fire-twirling troupe, The Emberellas, as well as the block party photographer.

Oh yeah, I have one other responsibility…

The 5th Annual Limerick Competition!

That’s right, folks, I’m going to be a judge in the finals.

So take a moment from your busy day and drop us a submission (or twenty). Who knows, you might even make the final ten and not only get to perform Saturday night and have a shot at winning a trip to Myrtle Beach, but get to see if I’m still standing at 8pm. (the current over/under is 9pm)

Drop us a few limericks, toasts or song lyrics and then get ready to don your finest green gear. In just five short days, bagpipes will be wailin’, bands will be rockin’ and Irish lips will be a smackin’!

(Disclosure: I’m the new Web Dude at M’Coul’s and they’re paying me in brunch omelets. Seriously.)

More…

A few months ago, Ndesanjo and I kicked back at a local pub and after a few drinks, began exchanging stories of past mentors that forever changed our lives.

I told Ndesanjo a few stories about Bill Readings, my revolutionary Contemporary Literary Theory professor from Syracuse University. That man completely altered the way I looked at both language and the world around me by planting his signature Deconstructionism seed in my skull. Without the experience of his class (and conversation over pints at Chucks), I’d be a completely different person today — processing both information and reality sans an apperception filter.

Ndesanjo spoke of Dr. Abdul Alkalimat, his former professor at the University of Toledo. He touched upon Dr. Alkalimat’s 40 years worth of work in the American Civil Rights movement, but even more importantly his forward-thinking thesis for bridging the digital divide and building local/global communities.

Last week, Ndesanjo passed me a speech Dr. Alkalimat gave at the 2004 Black Media Congress. If you have 20 minutes, take a listen — you won’t be disappointed.

Two words: On. Point.

(via neatorama)

Rwanda, 1994 - Survivor of Hutu death camp.

The opening statement from Nachtwey’s photojournalism portfolio:

“I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”

-James Nachtwey-

More on James’ work from EthanZ, covering TED.

(originally uploaded by xylonets)

Background on the entire series.