connecting*the*dots

I got into NYC late last night and just checked my news aggregator. What a great surprise. Best wishes to the Carroll family and a thank you to the men who ultimately decided to do the right thing and set her free.

Now, someone find them and hold them accountable for murdering Allan Enwiyah, Jill’s translator.

Just the other day I found myself on a 10 hour trip home from New Jersey. Normally, the drive kills me, but thankfully, I had hours upon hours of Echo Chamber Project podcasts sitting to my right. When I made it home at 3:00am (I missed the damn turn at 85-440), I plopped on the couch and fired off a note to Kent Bye, thanking him for the virtual company.

Well, Kent got back in touch the next day and asked if I’d like to chat over Skype. Here’s the result (part of the audio becomes scrambled for 30 seconds, twice).

The Carlyle Group was covered extensively in Fahrenheit 9/11. For those of you who refused to see the film, but are extremely upset about this port deal, I suggest you swallow your pride for a few hours and watch it.

As for the Olberman interview; there are some very real reasons that Bush is pushing this deal through. Our Navy needs the Dubai company controlled ports in the Middle East to continue the “War on Terror, “which progressively lines the pockets of The Carlyle Group more and more (sick, eh?). I’m sure international business doesn’t want to have ideology such as Homeland Security become a deal stopper in the future, but that’s a secondary concern to this President and his family at this point.

I mean come on, the bucks are rolling in.

WE let him steal the election… twice. And WE have let him run loose on:

• Katrina
• Iraq
• the Constitution

I’m not even mentioning the economy and the deficit, the sorry state of education, global warming, Medicare, etc. On a very real level, we’re all responsible for his freedom of actions, reactions, distractions.

US

Brownie was doing a heck of a job.

When I called for his neck last September, I admit I was pretty ruthless. But I’m no dummy; I left myself an exit strategy from my tirade:

And if Brown wasn’t the ultimate decision maker in this scenario, then he needs to step up and expose the machine which was responsible.

All good things come to those who wait.

Now let’s see if George W. Bush gets half the flack that Brownie received from our “misunderstanding” of the situation.

You’re still a crony, Brownie, but I’m man enough to apologize for my misdirected fury.

Make that “Bush Lied, People Died Again“…

I knew this fucker was lying the moment he opened his mouth. Now that there is fucking evidence, the only question remaining is what bullshit line are we going to swallow so that more people — whether here or around the world — are going to become D-E-A-D because of this motherfucking slimeball?

I apologize for the profanity, but I’m beyond words…

If you care *one iota* about your neighbors — from the family living next door, to the families under the scope in Iraq, to the families who faithfully serve our nation, to the families who might be next somewhere around the world — go to the polls and vote Democratic in this year’s mid-term Congressional elections.

For those of you who are frustrated with politics and think it won’t matter or that you don’t have a voice, I have one thing to tell you: you’re *wrong*. The only way Bush will be impeached is if the Democrats regain a majority in one branch of the government. If they do, his ass is as good as gone.

I’m *not* a Democrat, but this is a means to an end.

Vote or Die! For real.

Guardian Unlimited
Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

[…]

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush’s bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

-Homeland Security officials have said the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. “I’m sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done,” National Hurricane Center’s Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

“I don’t buy the `fog of war’ defense,” Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. “It was a fog of bureaucracy.”

-Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility - and Bush was worried too.

Just in case you didn’t catch that deceitful declaration, here it is:

Forget the lies surrounding the Iraqi War.

Forget the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

President Bush’s complete lack of leadership, responsiveness, honesty, hell, simple caring… regarding Katrina is more than enough grounds for impeachment.

At least on moral grounds.

(via The News Blog)

(Tom Toles via Yahoo!)

He may be the scum of the Earth, but you gotta love Jack-o’s sense of drama, as he dresses to the hilt Capone style when pleading guilty to just about every felony under the sun.

As sure as the sun rises each morning, a no trial plea means Abramoff is going to take down a handful of Republicans with him. And the only reason I’m happy about this news is because our elected representatives are going to get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I’m all about accountability on both sides of the aisle and everywhere else in-between.

Dave Winer, who I read often and agree with a good chunk of the time, is acting pretty shady with his latest post, "Hmm, not so sure about that."

In order to write a post about the ill-conceived notion of people "defining" what the blogosphere is "all about" (I happen to agree with him, it’s all in the eye of the beholder), he quotes a provocative one-liner from Tara at HorsePigCow saying:

"The blogosphere is all about subverting those power structures."

Dave then goes on to frame his position in any debate regarding the topic of blogging:

"It’s weird when someone who’s been blogging for months says what the blogosphere is all about and it doesn’t match up with what I, who have been blogging for years, thinks.

It’s one of those things where she can think what she wants and I can think what I want and the world goes on.

But anyone who thinks they know what the blogosphere is about is as right as someone who thinks they know the meaning of life, and potentially as dangerous (in a not-nice way) because maybe they’ll try to force you to see it their way."

Well, that’s a surgically chosen bait quote there, Dave. How about grabbing a quote which included a bit more context to her entire post, something akin to:

"For me, though, it comes down to power. I’m all for empowering the individual. (dot)Ben, being merely a conference participant, was able to voice his own dissension to the subject matter, but was called out by the speaker, who, had the power in that room. The blogosphere is all about subverting those power structures. The ‘me’conomy is rising, folks."

I read her post and followed her good links to find out that, apparently, tension at Les Blogs conference erupted as a speaker (Mena Trott) was criticized (with a "bullshit") by a member of the audience (Ben Metcalfe) via the (publicly displayed) conference backchannel discussion. Subsequently, Mena decided to ask the mystery handler to stand up and back his/her comments and the hilarity ensued.

Tara’s post was primarily gleaned analysis via Technorati’s "Top Searches This Hour" feature, commenting that it was a signifier of the blogosphere’s affinity to the little guy (Ben, the audience member) not the empowered (Mena, the speaker).

After doing my own hyperlink chasing through Tara and Ben’s posts, I stumbled across the fact that Dave was apparently present for watched the event on vidcast afterwards and left his comments on Ben’s squash-attempting post about "the incident." So if Dave was at the event, and participated by having discourse with Ben on his post about the incident, why the fuck didn’t he attribute a more contextual quote to Tara?

Instead, following the out-of-context quote he framed within his own rhetoric, he pushes his own false-positive agenda to the forefront (emphasis mine):

"I did an interview earlier this week, talking about the relationship between blogging and professional journalism, and I reiterated my old line, that I don’t want to do away with the pros, I grew up reading them, and I think they serve a purpose. But they have to lose the arrogance and get creative if they want to have a chance in the new century.

Now I imagine from Tara’s point of view I look like as much of an obstacle to her getting what she wants as the pros may have looked to a blogger who started when I did. I heard this in North Carolina at a session where I was used as an example of what blogging was rising against, the middle-aged white male. I was horrified, because I gave up a lot, personally, so that these people would have a chance to blog. Now I’m being projected on, it’s the Chinese Cultural Revolution all over again. Grandfather is a bourgeois counter-revolutionary, even if he marched with Chairman Mao."

So is this an example of less arrogance and more creativity? Ugh.

The net effect on the majority of Dave’s readers with less time on their hands than me, is that they are now led to believe that Tara is a whiner, craving more reach, incessantly striving to get on the A-list, all based on her out-of-context quote. My conscience is forcing me to drop this post because "old school Dave" doesn’t believe in the value of comments on his own blo (blogs without comments are only partial-blogs), but did you notice that Dave will flame somebody within their own blog post comments?

And he’s the old guard netizen?

Dave finishes off his post (after waxing poetic on issues ranging from being a Boomer to Apple execs in Africa to a smart Carl Sagon reference) with this gem:

"When people get the idea that they’re on some righteous path that’s exclusive of others, that’s when I start shaking my head. It doesn’t matter who they are, who they work for, or how much (or little) money they have. Get a clue, we’re all bozos on this bus, and none of us gets out of this alive."

How very true, but how very pathetic to so blatantly step on someone to get a seat on said bus.

After a ton of hard work by many people, the redesigned Media Matters for America site has launched.

OLD:

NEW:

Behavior Design knocked out the visual design, we shared the information design, I handled the tagging schema/information architecture and we all tag-teamed with the Media Matters crew.

Now that the site is live, I’ve a bunch of tagging and findability methods I’d like to discuss here, but not tonight. Tonight I digest my sushi dinner with friends in San Fran.

Terrance—over at The Republic of T—asks a simple, yet provocative question in preparation of the 2006 elections: What’s Your Platform?

Okay, I’m game. Here are my most imperative policy reforms, in no particular order.

1) 2.0 the hell out of government
Congress was only able to see "finished" intelligence before voting to give the Bush administration power to go to war (as a last resort). In my world, anything that the Executive branch sees, the Legislative branch sees. My voice is represented by my state officials, not the president. This one example of a non-transparent government directly led to the deaths of more than 30,000 human beings.

The most applicable 2.0 philosophy for reforming government is the philosophy of openness. From open source to open content, imagine the possibilities of employing a government that makes all de-classified government documents, congressional voting records, appointee resumes, etc. instantly available in a relational database with open APIs for public use. All of this information is available now, but it’s not prepped for accessibility and reuse. This is the future of accountability. Up communication and transparency, reduce the "Fuck You!" noise of the left vs. the right blogosphere to constructive collaboration… that is until government tries to pull something, and then we get back on them like white on rice.

2) Create a nominal tax to directly supplement teacher salaries
Great teachers are few and far between nowadays. Why? Well, you try dealing with kids, administrators and parents all day, adhere to and circumvent the red-tape and legalities of this age with the grace of a seasoned politician and pull in ~$45k per year.

I’m talking about, say, a .1% tax that goes directly towards teacher salaries. I gotta admit, I got the idea from Mini-Me when he appeared as a genius teacher on an episode of Boston Public a few years back. His thesis was that the degree to which students are prepared by their public school years directly impacts their earning potential, so reward their hometown education system with a nominal, flat tax return to impact teacher salaries. Tell ‘em. Verne!

3) Rip up the Patriot Act
As alluded to in the first part of my platform, transparency of government will lead to politicians being held accountable to create humane national and global policies. It’ll also foster the innovation of extremely real-time and smart communication user experiences, which can then be applied by government in the authenticated realm of classified material.

This edict of transparency cannot be applied to individuals. Our individual right of privacy is what has distinguished us from the rest of the world for centuries. The Patriot Act is legislation with language that allows for the control, intimidation and investigation of Americans through the guise of terrorism. It’s like the old censorship debate; who defines what is terrorism? The abuse of American rights have already begun.

4) Election reforms
First, all television campaigns are free. Each major candidate (there would have to be some way to determine "major," possibly something akin to the BSC polls/stats via past political progress made) is provided a set amount of credits to apply to the "purchase" of air time. This opens up the playing field to a diverse class of politicians who can focus on the issues, not their fund raising. I bet Tom Delay would even go for this.

Second, ensure that voting is both easy to access and secure. All voting systems could easily be tied together into one database, while creating alternative voting options, such as over the internet and by phone. We’ve been to the moon people…

5) National health care for everyone… Yes, you too
Riddle me this: Large corporations get major discounts on health care coverage due to the amount of employees they staff, right? Okay, then why not treat congressional districts as semantic equivalents of large pools of employees (citizen residents) by submitting them as huge groups into the bidding process?

C’mon, try to tell me why that doesn’t make any sense.

6) Incentivize industry to reduce our dependency on oil and clean up the environment
I know, the oil industry has major power claws dug deep into our political system, but this is my platform, so I’ll risk the blunt gas nozzle to the back of my head. This current administration gave tax breaks to manufacturers who create hybrid vehicles, but capped the production of cars to 60,000 that qualify for the break. Yeah.

First, we create California-like emmission standards and apply it nationally. Second, we apply money to develop alternative forms of fuel instead of planning a fucking trip to Mars or building that damn bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Third… well, I’m not that smart, but these people are.

Well, that’s my platform. God knows there are other extremely important issues (like getting out of Iraq, impeaching Bush, etc.), but that’s all the brainpower I have for tonight. I’m sure many of you want to label me as a liberal communist or some other "sticks and stones" nomenclature, and if I just described your take on me, my message to you is grow the fuck up. These are serious times, calling for serious people. The longer you avoid engaging in honest discussions along these lines, the easier it becomes to spot your agenda.

To the rest of you, let’s work together to get these bozos out of office in 2006.

President Bush has been pumping the "…you are either with us or against us…" rhetoric since his November 6th 2001 news conference regarding the then upcoming war against terrorism. At the time, most Americans felt he was speaking to countries that were either harboring terrorist training camps (Afghanistan) or on the fence in supporting our war planning (Turkey).

Following Bush’s recent Veterans Day speech, it’s apparent he’s speaking to American citizens as well.

To the Bush administration, any dissent—specifically, the pursuit of the potential lies which led us to war in the first place—is unpatriotic. Their perspective is that this “revisionist” talk during war time puts our troops in danger and jeopardizes the mission at hand. Terry Heaton provides a compelling argument against the foundation of this thesis.

With the politics at full rage, enter stage right Senator Chuck Hagel (R - Neb) to provide a level headed perspective:

“To question your government is not unpatriotic — to not question your government is unpatriotic,” Hagel said, arguing that 58,000 troops died in Vietnam because of silence by political leaders. “America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices.”

Hagel should have this perspective on war and dissent.

As a Vietnam War veteran, he put his life in danger for a corrupt cause, while watching his buddies fall and a nation respond with anti-war protests. Now, as a US Senator, he has the ability to balance those experiences with the responsibilities of national security and foreign policy.

My only issue with his perfectly lucid and spot on argument is the timing.

Where was Chuck Hagel the last few years on these topics of war planning, the freedom of speech and political discourse?

This response seems to fit into the age old process of grass roots representation of the people altering the perspective of corporate interests, which in turn affects Congressmen, as their constituency have already begun to turn the corner.

While the corrupt nature of this administration is an absolute disgrace and criminal in the least and most of the GOP is already jumping ship like rats on the Titanic, I think there’s something more to Hagel’s rhetoric.

As a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, Hagel could very easily be distancing himself from a lame duck and unpopular administration. The GOP is losing their grip on Washington as each day passes and the chance that a Republican candidate will return as president in 2008 is becoming extremely slim. So if you’re the Republican Party, what choice do you have other than vulturing the replaceable icon at the top of your own pyramid organization?

If I were running that show, I’d ensure that George Bush continued to “stay the course” with his verbal indiscretions, while setting up top Republican leaders to contradict his perspective.

Smoke and mirrors, folks.

I’m not so cynical to absolutely believe that Chuck Hagel doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but the proof is in the pudding. There’s more than enough free speech and web infrastructure legislation for him to champion. The question is will he step up and take a bi-partisan position, which will undoubtedly challenge the power structure of old school capitalism that prolongs conflicts such as the Iraq war, or will he just drop quotable comments into the ether.

Here’s your shot, Senator. Lead or get out of the way.

I don’t often use these guys as an example of great journalism, but this Hardball segment is on point. They convincingly expose Dick Cheney’s lies regarding the tie between one of the primary 9/11 terrorists and Iraq.

The entire piece screams conspiracy to sell and then launch an illegal war.

Of course, this leaves me with a few questions:

• Who holds these men and woman accountable to such contradictions and lies? Congress? Another special prosecutor?
• Do we have to wait until there’s a Democratic administration in office before an investigation is launched?
• Is Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation expanding?

If it’s proven that this unethical administration schemed to launch an illegal war by knowingly using false evidence — a war which has already killed tens of thousands of people — I want justice.

And no, my sense of justice would not equate with a misdemeanor.

Indy films definitely hit a substantial delay in finding their way to my new home in Greensboro, NC, so after a month or so of waiting, I finally had a chance to see Good Night, And Good Luck this past weekend.

Classic.

Heading into the film, I had already regarded Edward R. Murrow a warrior for exposing the truth and championing the rights of the common man and woman, but if GNAGL enlightened me to anything it was to his absolute dedication to a pure journalistic method and a deeply, refined and realistic business acumen.

The Prototypical Newsman

With his classic, stoic, "just the facts ma’am" delivery, Murrow captivated his audience. He came across as an authority figure to the less media savvy audience of the 1950’s, but he also played the role of friend and confidant in the daily struggle to keep on keeping on. Murrow knew very well that if he didn’t consistently frame the paradoxes and contradictions of reality (in this case, Senator Joe McCarthy’s witch hunt), he’d be fair game for criticism and his career would head south quicker than a goose caught up in an October jet stream. That recognition of ethical behavior and accountability was too refreshing to view on film, because in our modern day, mass media world, those self-applied standards of journalistic integrity have all but flown the coop.

Understanding Power

If the film was even close to truly representing the relationship between Murrow and William Paley (the head of CBS), they provided an amazing service by exposing the foundation which drives decisions within the media ecosystem: advertising.

While Murrow bartered with Paley at every turn in order to continue exposing the world around him, Paley seemed forever caught between a rock and a hard place; he needed to keep Murrow happy with his role at CBS by providing the latitude necessary to fuel his journalistic passion while somehow balancing the finicky palette of his paid advertisers. The character development of Paley was rich and multidimensional, as I truly felt his angst in the midst of his paradoxical role within such a Darwinesque ecosystem.

And to see Edward R. Murrow, champion of the people, interviewing Liberace, well, it spoke volumes about the character of the man. He didn’t play the role of prima donna, refusing to lower his standards to run chatty interviews. He didn’t use an agent to threaten litigation. He recognized his role in adding value to the network by spreading his good name across programming that would return a dollar for Paley and the executive team. Though, the look on his face while he ran a fluff interview reminded me of a look and a feeling I’ve seen and heard hundreds of times over.

Modern Day Murrows

The majority of present day citizen journalists—Murrow molded bloggers—have day jobs. We design websites, write code, run businesses, multi-task like madmen, etc. Do we all wish we could blog for a living? I’d venture to say that most of us would say yes, as long as we wouldn’t have a strict editorial edict with advertising pressures. You see, we’re a bit spoiled like that.

Murrow had to navigate closed, controlled environments with a high degree of grace in order to shed light through one window of opportunity, one night a week. Bloggers? Well, we’ve become accustom to firing from the hip, espousing our opinions, perspectives and, yes, researched journalism on a intra-day basis, with no editor or advertising revenues to be concerned with. Has this new paradigm created irresponsible reporting? No more than the closed venue of the mainstream media. The difference is that we’re now empowered to network common visions and dreams, driving the potential of a new day into an actual sunrise, and the power of that freedom is upsetting the status quo.

Corporate media and industries are absolutely petrified by the potential of ordinary people gaining broadcast reach. And as much as I plan on assisting corporate America through this transition into the fast track of iterative development and customer accountability, until they can recognize that everything has changed and that we, the people, are now empowered, I won’t lose one wink of sleep over their concerns.

Can There Be Flat Hierarchy?

It’s true that if it weren’t for the relentless corporate push to rapidly develop and monetize the web in the mid-90’s, blogging technology might not have come about as quickly. Just as true was that VC investment in the potential of the web greatly contributed to the explosion of the infrastructure of information retrieval — collaborative filtering, search algorithms and now folksonomies.

So yes, we are all in this together. The talent needs the funding, but not as much as the funding needs the talent. Remember the last time we danced to this tune: capitalist power players funded the development of the internet on the shoulders of false stickiness, returning large dividends of ad revenue while the innovators focused on innovation. Many of those same capitalists continued to overinvest by underwriting ridiculous IPO’s until the bubble burst. Was it coincidence that a majority of them could reinvest in the internet at a basement entry price, while the talent scrambled about just to retain paid gigs?

Now the power players are scrambling to monetize our blood, sweat and tears at every turn, on every feed, on every page, while we continue to blaze paths two steps ahead of them with our eyes focused on the greater good. We’ll keep doing our thing, they’ll keep doing theirs.

In the end, what else can we say to them but “Good Night, and Good Luck?”

Back in July, I found myself following one of my usual late night routines; browsing flickr late at night, hopping from one intense image to the next, pulling myself farther and farther into the late hours of the evening. The image that ended my discovery scenario that night was one which framed a masked protester holding a sign reading, "Dictatorial Democracy!" The composition and message created an extremely striking and provocative statement. I dropped into the discussion thread, left a comment, marked it as a favorite and retired for the evening.

Fast forward two weeks; I’m in the midst of some serious self-transformation—from a corporate design lead to a full-time freelance information architect and blogger actively participating in the information revolution. I had too many thoughts bouncing about my head and needed to get them down as an explicit, lasting statement. I began crafting a post about what had led me to begin my dedicated contribution to political and cultural discourse. The visceral image of the protester jumped into my mind as a perfect visual cue, so I hopped over to flickr, grabbed it (CC licensed) and included it within the post.

When QOOP partnered with flickr to provide printing capabilities a few weeks back, I found myself creating a poster of the protect image before the application could even cool off. Within a week, the print arrived at my door and I was blown away by the quality.

Now, when I glance at the image on my wall, I not only visualize the thought process of the photographer as he composed the shot, but the philosophical drivers of both Stewart Butterfield and the flickr team as well. True, this is a physical remainder of one man’s passionate expression, but the implicit philosophies of an open business model resonates just as much in the tactile form of a print, one that didn’t belong to me but was "let go into the ether" to be used and reused. Both the photographer and flickr share numerous traits: a deep seeded passion, the desire for open participation and the use of technology as a vehicle for change. The end result is that one man’s political perspective—without the benefits of a political platform—is now a tangible, refined component of my home experience.

That’s extremely powerful stuff.

But with this one print in particular, if I don’t deconstruct the message further, I’d be guilty of simply adorning eye-candy on my wall. For as much as I love the image and the powerful message it delivers, after thinking about it for a few months, there’s a very romantic naivety to the whole scene.

Back To Reality

Our government isn’t structured for any administration to listen to the explicit desires resonating from the free speech of Americans. The Executive branch works with Congress, whose members have been elected by the constituents of each state. Free speech can move, motivate, challenge and change individuals, but it will never influence the Executive branch. Only polls of the American people have that power and the resulting moves by an administration are placating at best. If you want to elicit change through the actions of an elected official, you have to start on a local level—blog, call your congressman, volunteer in a campaign, meet with like-minded folk, organize unions, etc. Ranting alone will not make change occur.

Take old school corporate structure as a metaphor to government. How often do you think C-levels base their policy on the voice of employees or individual consumers? Sure, it may happen at times due to sheer coincidence, but policies are primarily based on:

1. Shareholder desires and concerns
2. Advertiser desire and concerns (if applicable)
3. The domain experience and agendas of executives
4. Client/user/customer desires and concerns
5. The input of employees

To a user experience designer like myself, this is in the very least ill-balanced, but it’s the common DNA of present day big money capitalism; first serve the desires of your investors, then serve the desires of the common folk—even the ones who use your products or services. Would Michael Dell listen to a bunch of individual customers over his shareholders or retail customers?

Probably not.

So, back to our current administration — considered by many to be the most secretive administration ever—the problem isn’t that Bush, Chaney and the rest of the gang aren’t listening to the people; the problem is that they’ve lied to Congress, creating false evidence to go to war, while simultaneously placing social reformations on the back burner. We don’t need to completely reinvent the wheel of our government and the constitution; we need to hold public officials (and corporate lobbyists) accountable to working within the legal parameters currently set forth. We need to remove the cries of a dictatorial democracy, and instead, hold ourselves accountable to participate within a collaborative republic.

Maybe I’ll create a re-mashed version of my new poster reflecting these sentiments and shoot it up to flickr. Who knows whose home it’ll live in next?

Note to aspiring politicians: Keep it real, hound effortlessly for the truth and you will have a lasting place in American politics. The people are now involved in the process.

Harry Reid’s actions were completely justified and just caught the attention of a ton of Independent voters. A reporter asked Reid, "Why didn’t you consult with Senate Majority Leader Frist first?" Reid responded that he followed Senate policy after too much feet dragging; there’s no need to consult.

Consider me first on line to shake his hand. It’s about damn time.

(.mov via Think Progress)

Yesterday on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly invited two guests onto his program to whine about being held accountable by watchdog web sites for the things he says on-air. Number one on his “smear list” is Media Matters for America.

Personally speaking, I couldn’t have been more delighted.

You see, I’m in the midst of finishing up my part as the information architect on the next version of the mediamatters.org web site. When the site launches, it’ll be even easier for Joe Q. Public to provide media misinformation tips to the Media Matters analysts. The information retrieval system will be advanced as well, improving direct navigation and contextual browsing to topical items of interest. All in all, it’ll be a more educational, interactive and intuitive user experience.

Media Matters for America has a noble charge; to frame conservative misinformation as it occurs within any aspect of the American media ecosystem. Bill O’Reilly should be scared… as should Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and the entire mainstream media establishment. Media Matters is not about smearing, they’re about accountability.

If you don’t report the facts, Media Matters will point you out.
If you present a racist or immoral opinion, Media Matters will expose you.

The American press is supposed to operate out of principles of integrity and ethics, serving as the fourth estate, the public check and balance of government. That isn’t happening, as the media ecosystem has turned for the worse, pimping information for advertising dollars. So Media Matters, and thousands of blogs, now have a role in contextualizing the reported news, providing perspective and keeping the paid professionals in check.

If the American news machine actually cared more about exposing the truth of a story, and not constructing their format around an advertising model — placing a burden on editors to choose between the news and fact checked news — Media Matters wouldn’t exist.

So put on your seatbelt, Billy Boy. If you don’t stop spewing misinformation from a projected position of news, your rough ride is going to continue to get worse.

UPDATE: It turns out that O’Reilly and his producer goons baited David Kline to come on to discuss political blogging in general, and then switched format midstream to whine about Media Matters. Typical O’Reilly. Well, I’m sure Media Matters will thank him for the unpaid advertising. I would’ve thought that FOX learned their Marketing 101 lesson after hitting Al Franken up with a lawsuit. I guess not.

May Jon Stewart’s reign never cease. All hail the smartass.

About a month ago, the Economist published an article about Yahoo!’s schizophrenic nature as a company. Yahoo!’s history as an Internet pioneer moved me to christen them as a change agent for Web 2.0 — the complete opposite of the flaky AOLish operation.

Well, those wacky Yahooligans are off their meds again. God bless ‘em.

In a few weeks, Yahoo! plans on releasing In the Hot Zone, a first person, solo journalism (SoJo) effort by Kevin Sites, who’ll cover the most war torn areas of the globe; areas which receive little to no mainstream coverage in the US. Here’s a taste of the Yahoo! approach:

Our Principles:

We will be aggressive in pursuing the stories that are not getting mainstream coverage and we will put a human face on them. We will not chase headlines nor adhere to pack journalism but vigorously pursue the stories in front of and behind the conflict, the small stories that when strung together illustrate a more complete picture.

We are professional journalists and will apply to our work the ethical code of conduct as outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists:

• To seek and report the truth.
• To minimize harm.
• To act independently.
• To be accountable.

We strongly believe, as stated in the preamble of this code, "that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy."

We also will add four more criteria to our work that will take us above the journalistic code. We also pledge in our reporting and storytelling:

Transparency
An honest and authentic accounting of both our failure and successes, to pull back the curtain on our editorial and technological process. We refuse to propagate the myths of the omniscient, infallible correspondent.

Vulnerability
We will strive to live, breathe, and experience the lives of the people we are covering — including the daily dangers they’re exposed to from combat, disease, and hardship.

Empathy
We may not always agree with our sources, but we will make every effort to understand their positions and report them with clarity, so that our audience may have context and perspective.

Solutions
Our site will contain links to organizations and groups that are working to aid victims of these conflicts and assist in their peaceful resolutions.

Will Yahoo! succeed in this venture? I don’t know, but it really doesn’t matter, because by just making this announcement, Yahoo! has already set the tone for alternative news reporting in a mainstream format (the far reaching walls of the Yahoo! membership and reach).

Even if they fail in the tactical attempt based on any number of conflicts (remember the Chinese reporter incident?) more sites will undoubtedly take on the challenge and pick up the baton running. A change agent, when all is said and done, is about the change. Steering change through it’s evolutionary course isn’t necessary the goal.

Yahoo! is leading at the point where Web 2.0 crosses over into the real. Sweet.

UPDATE: Current TV anyone?

I grew up across the Hudson, about 13 miles west in a town called Montclair. Our home stood on a hill on the western side of town, with my bedroom resting on the eastern side of our third floor Victorian.

In the winter months, when the leaves of the Oaks and Elms dropped throughout town, my eyes could skip over Anderson Park, past downtown Upper Montclair and over the thin tree tops in neighboring towns, catching the very tips of The City skyline.

As a young boy that daily exercise both excited and enticed, as my minds eye continued on and landed me farther, way beyond the skyline, deep into the midst of Manhattan, my perceived gateway to the world.

My parents are both artists and educators who met at Columbia University in the 60’s. As a child in the late 70’s, they’d take me and my brother to gallery openings in old Soho and to the West Village to experience (off) Broadway shows.

Our days in The City were wild, fun, provocative and inspiring.

When family or friends came to town, we’d enter tourist mode and scale the Empire State Building for a die-cast statue and snapshots of the view down or dine at Windows on the World, pretending to fit in with our fumbled, New Jersey appearances and mannerisms.

The City was as big as the world; they were one and the same to me.

Life Lessons

From an early age, my parents allowed me the freedom to explore my surroundings in our neighborhood and around my suburban town, but on their terms, making sure to teach me the basics before letting me out the door — to always look left and right before crossing the street and call home collect whenever I needed a ride.

Times in the suburbs were much simpler back then. Conversely, the late 1970’s/early 1980’s streets of The City had a different lesson in tow.

Whenever I visited, The City schooled me that a world filled of vertical cities lived above street level, while below the streets, the world was connected, full of roaming individuals whom I couldn’t engage with by conversation or by sight.

The City’s rationale (it spoke to all of us), was that in those pre-Giuliani times — the Bernard Getz era of NYC and only a few years removed from the Son of Sam and the craziness of the NYC blackout — you’d be pegged a tourist simply for looking 45 degrees higher than your line of sight and that transparency could open yourself up for a con or a mugging.

“That’s how people are taken advantage of,” the wisdom of the City would tell me, and I listened, because I trusted The City.

Why wouldn’t I?

So I learned to glance and frame the moment of people, places and things. Take it all in, but mind my own business was the lesson I learned.

These two sets of extremely bipolar rules — my parent’s light schooling of linear confrontations and the hierarchical laws of The City — represented the checklist of street smarts I owned at age 10.

Now 34, though schooled by many more life lessons of much greater complications, I continue to think, dream, plan and move about my life with these early lessons in tow.

Why?

The City gave me Don Quixote and Starlight Express and George Segal pedestrians and giant, 5-foot pencils and toothbrushes on West Broadway. It gave me the Bronx Bombers, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and hot dogs on the sidewalk. It even gave me Yellow Cabs with mini, fold-up seats facing away from the driver, which perfectly fit my smaller frame.

The City bought my complete trust with the allure of growing up to possess a soul similar to the Great Grid and all that lay in-between.

So I walked between the buildings and never looked up; I glanced at the people and never saw a face.

All Grown Up

In 1996, my first gig in The City had me commuting in from Jersey City, where I lived with my girlfriend at the time. I worked just below Canal Street in a multimedia shop set above a Futon outlet; one of the twenty Futon stores on the block. Though I had a substantial commute with the PATH schedule, my daily trek proved to be a nice contrast to my previous reverse commute deep into the Western expanses of New Jersey.

Once I landed in Manhattan at the WTC PATH station, I’d ride the packed escalators to ground level and walk the twelve blocks to my job, breathing in the fresh air of downtown Manhattan. Often, I’d stop at the same street vendor for fruit and juice to enjoy as I settled into my desk overlooking the rooftop water towers of Soho.

As the long day of animating cartoon characters and chilling in lunch meetings at spots such as Fanelli’s and Bar 89 came to a close, I looked forward to the walk back to the WTC, and the ride under the river to my affordable existence.

I was finally living my dream within the gateway.

The Turn

Just as soon as I felt my dreams of experiencing The City coming together, my daily trek began to take on a uncomfortable vibe.

I started to loathe my commute, with the crowds of suits on the PATH and our long escalator ride up into the heart of the WTC underground mall, squashed together like sardines. Innocuous moments became unbearably annoying, simple things, like passing the WTC Disney Store each morning as I approached the exit to street level.

The commercial and business epicenter of downtown Manhattan started to eat away at me; more and more, I actually became upset watching three-quarters of my fellow travelers disappear every morning like worker ants into this building, a structure that I now only used as a thousand foot-tall roof twice a day and a directional beacon while uptown.

What happened to the romance of The City?

In my 25-year old mind, the WTC — my newfound entrance and exit point of The City — began to viscerally represent home to corporate yes men, guys who would just as soon knock over a woman stepping onto the PATH as they would verbally drool over her once they landed their prime positioning in front of the opposing exit door.

I mean, the PATH was so crowded at times, I actually witnessed smaller people get lifted off their feet in the shifting and shoving and cramming of bodies to get to work — or more directly to the point, to get to a pay day.

It was around this time that I was struck by a profound realization; not only had I broken one of the golden rules of The City by gawking at a vertical city, I’d been gawking at the epitome, the archetype of a vertical city.

For months on end, I’d been staring straight up into the WTC’s belly, observing its mechanisms and deconstructing its inhabitants, changing my behavior to match it’s very, particular pace and heartbeat. As I began to consciously ponder this realization, The City reacted in it’s best Don Pardo voice and reached out to quell my new found sensibilities the only way it could:

“Hey Sean, forget why you thought you loved me. Classic Yellow Cabs are gone, Soho is an outdoor mall, the eighties are done. Try on these duds for size!”

This time, I wasn’t buying.

Now that my eyes were truly open, prolonged, daily glances into the eyes of the people that surrounded me provided me with nothing but negative vibes in return. The pang of repetition, the exhaustion and the real-life scheming of men and women, desperate to keep up with the Jones’, made my shift in perspective clearer each day.

Now when I walked through the grid of The City, each of the vertical cities above ground began to take on a new representation to me. Hierarchy, wealth and confliction loomed over the masses of citizens, who were either explicitly or implicitly schooled to not look into the eyes of the beast as well.

I came to the conclusion that by not looking all these years, really looking at what was happening in those corner office expanses, we were each complicit in allowing these vertical cities to intimidate our lives with dangled carrots and unattainable conclusions of never ending pursuits.

At that time in my life, such a revelation was way too much for me to unravel and digest — let alone express — so I quickly jotted down a sketch (left) and moved on psychologically and physically. I shut out the very existence of what I had learned to be true, and let the representational presence of buildings disappear.

I left town.

Once clear of a visceral connection to these expansive, white collar, networked resources, only a matrix of interlocking paths of human relationships remained. See, back in the day, when my 10 year-old mind’s eye pictured the essence of The City, it romanced the Great Grid, but not the grid of city blocks and the office towers; it romanced the unknown personalities, diversity and creativity of the people of New York themselves.

It was criminal how long it took me to recognize that notion.

Moving On

Tonight marks the fourth day of the second week of my new life in Greensboro, North Carolina. The last time I left The City it ended up as a brief respite in the Birkshires — essentially serving as a pit-stop before heading back to reconnect with, and take on the vertical cities from within.

I doubt I’ll take the same path this time.

Maybe I’ve lost the passion, or maybe, just maybe, I’ve come to realize that seeing my passion to fruition can’t occur within a representation of the confrontational juxtaposition itself. Maybe I’m better off planning, expressing, and implementing from a room on the eastern side of an old wooden home, with a window overlooking the thin, slumbering Oaks and Elms of a quaint town, while the far off tips of a skyline glistens in the early morning sky.

Maybe now I’ll look directly into the eyes of my fellow travelers and explore relationships with the people underground and above, walking proudly with the roaming individuals themselves.

Today marks the four-year anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. Bless the souls that were lost that day, as well as the ones that became lost as a result, but damn those souls to hell who haven’t learned a thing since.

A local Mississippian speaking to Dick Cheney in the only language he recognizes, live on CNN:

(via I’m. Your. Idle.)

There are people out there, right now, blaming the Katrina disaster on Mayor Ray Nagin; the Mayor of a city whose very existence was strangled by the federal government and their budget cuts.

His hands were completely tied regarding preventative measures, and as Mayor, his resources are completely limited in rescue & relief efforts.

Listen to Nagin for yourself (mp3).

George Bush: "No one could have anticipated the breaching of the levees."

Really?

2001
Preliminary Public Health Issues
2002
PBS Special
City in a Bowl
2002
NOLA.com
Washing Away
2003
New Orleans Hurricane Impact Study
2004
National Geographic
Gone With The Water
2004
Independent Weekly
Disaster In The Making
June 2005
New Orleans City Business
New Orleans District of the US Army Corps of Engineers Faces

It took me 10 minutes on Google to find those references. I’ll just chalk up your statement as another lie, Mr. .. eh-hem… President.

But while we’re talking about the levees, let’s discuss what happened to the funding for the Army Corp of Engineers to finish the construction. Apparently, there was a specific article in the Times-Picayune on June 8th of 2004 which detailed the federal cuts for hurricane preparedness and levee construction and improvement in New Orleans. It’s not available on-line, but TMPCafe put together excerpts of the piece here. Here’s a taste:

The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration’s $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn’t get paid this year."

[…]

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in
Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

So apparently, occupying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction is a higher priority than shoring up a defense structure to ensure that the largest homeland disaster ever doesn’t occur. Your President, George Bush, moved FEMA into the Homeland Security classification bucket so he could draw potential disaster protection/relief funding into his War for Oil… er… Against Terror.

How’s that for blatant disregard for public safety? How many people are in American jails for simple possession of narcotics, while this man runs loose destroying our nation, murdering innocent people around the world, while lining his own pockets?

How pompous and disrespectful is this guy?

George Bush, Governor of Texas, giving the "one finger victory salute" before he addressed the state.

George Bush, President of The United States of America, flipping off the press and anyone watching.

No, Fuck You Georgie Boy. WHEN WILL THIS POMPOUS, INCOMPETENT, MURDEROUS, CRIMINAL, COKE-HEAD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!?

To the House and Senate: Your constituents are becoming furious. It’s time to relieve this man of his power.

Take your time watching this clip. Feel Charmaine Neville keeping a level head regarding the role cause and effect had when it came to the rapes, murders and random shootings she either witnessed or experienced herself.

Listen to her.

Accountability. Now.

(via Idleatwork.com)

Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, needs to be fired. Now.

I’m not one for firing individuals to placate a populace; that’s the bullshit move of governments and corporations throughout the annals of history.

The difference with this Michael Brown firing would be its basis in explicit evidence of inept preparation, leadership and execution. The 2004 National Response Plan (pdf) outlines his (the Federal Government) responsibilities in situation of natural disasters.

Brown’s non-existent plan for evacuating the under the poverty line populace of the New Orleans area once Hurricane Katrina hit the radar, is a scathing example of poor leadership. While a death count was unavoidable due to years of overlooking the issues surrounding the integrity of the city’s levees, his analysis-paralysis greatly added to the numbers.

If Brown were on the ball, doing his job as outlined, he would’ve factored the impoverished population of New Orleans into the evacuation plans. He didn’t. People without the means to leave were left behind to drown, floating about town in a watery grave. And if Brown wasn’t the ultimate decision maker in this scenario, then he needs to step up and expose the machine which was responsible.

President Bush has no recourse but to fire Brown and launch an immediate investigation into the preparation model for potential natural disasters in this region and across the rest of the United States. Even Michelle Malkin is calling for his dismissal.

Accountability. Now.

(originally uploaded by Antifluff Superstar)

While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment from the left blogosphere, nothing that the Bush administration has done (or not done) surprises me.

Why?

Because a large percentage of the American public will continue to allow themselves to fall into the trappings of the Bush administration’s lies, no matter the dark alley we are led to.

It’s called fear.

And even though Bush’s overall approval ratings are unbelievably low, his hardcore support continues to be there in force for one simple, but powerful, reason:

The wealthy and powerful stick with the wealthy and powerful to keep and create more wealth and power.

Only when it is not in their best interests will they act otherwise.

These strategic relationships — private industry to public service and back — provide vast resources and networks in keeping the masses in consume and desire mode, while providing each other the cover of a shared vocabulary to continuously spin themselves clear of criticism.

And when I say consume, I don’t necessarily mean eating drug-laced poultry or purchasing unnecessary material products.

This administration has perfected the consumption of propaganda regarding what it means to be an American — or more precisely — they’ve generated clear symptoms of an anti-American as any person who dissents from the party line.<