Thursday, April 03, 2008

Reflections on the 40th anniversary of King's assassination

Martin Luther King, Jr.At a time when we were, ostensibly, trying to come together, it seemed the divisions had never been more pronounced. Each of us who lived through, and recalls, those times bears a certain number of wounds. The reaction to King's murder was rioting on a scale this country had never known. What started as a peaceful march for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis became violence none could ignore.

We must not forget. For the sake of our children, we dare not.

"We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
~ Senator Barack Obama


SF- BIG Panel On Digital Ad Talent - St. Regis Hotel, SF

The San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group or "SF-BIG" asked me to make this video of their "Reach" event held March 20th, 2008 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. The topic was on what ad firms look for in digital ad talent and what advantage -- if any -- San Francisco has as a center of digital media. The panelists included Melinda Mettler (Academy of Art School of Advertising), Alyson Hyder (Avenue A | Razorfish); Bernie Albers (Federated Media); and David Greenwald, (i2iplacement). In all it was a great event and the breakfast was terrific.

iTunes Makes Apple #1 Music Retailer In U.S.A



According to ArtsTechnica.com, Apple has risen to become the number one music retailer in the United States, and all of those transactions are online - not one single money exchange was done by a cash register in an Apple store.

That's amazing. Apple has surpassed WalMart, BestBuy and another online retailer Amazon.com to reach this position. But this should firmly cement in the mind of the public the fact that online retail is not a fad and is the next wave of transactions.

But ArtsTechnica points to a "dark side" of Apple's success because many "offline" retail purchases are of high-end CD's, so Apple's success means that the overall revenue of the music industry is falling.

Factor military duty into criticism, Mr. Limbaugh. Did you volunteer, Mr. O'Reilly?

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as Jeremiah Wright, received five (5) military service deferments, four for being a student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968.

In 1961, amid an increasingly turbulent time in this country, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," Wright gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the recently integrated U.S. Marine Corps. Remember, it was not until the spring of 1968 that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. All men may have been created equal, but in the U.S. in the 60s there was little assuring they would be afforded equal rights in most places.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?


How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.


While words do count, as Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss point out in the April 3rd piece in the Chicago Trib after looking into Jeremiah Wright's history, so do actions.

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CNN's Brianna Keilar Now Regular Anchor On CNN Morning



CNN's Brianna Keilar Now Regular Anchor On CNN Morning



After what seemed to be fits and starts, Brianna Keilar, who I met at the 2005 NFL Draft and was then with MTV-U, then after an agent contacted me in late 2005 -- well, pestered me, really -- about seeing her here online at this account I wrote about Brianna Keilar at the 2005 NFL Draft, I informed her and after she responded with an approval, I gave him her then current contact information.

The result, in 2006, was that Brianna Keilar was hired by CNN, and after she really thought it was going to take years to get there. I've not got a note from her since, even as we were emailing back and forth before then in 2005 and that agent guy was really bugging me for her contact information, and even though I wrote "Congratulations! A glass of wine would be cool."

The funny thing is that we -- she and I -- were talking about the importance of relationships as a key to success, you'd think she'd have said "thanks" at least. It's not like we didn't connect after the NFL Draft.

We had a lot of people we knew in common, from Frank Sommerville and Kenny Wardell who was then at KTVU with Sommerville, and the Cal-Berkeley connection, but for some reason now that she's a "big star" she doesn't even mention Cal on CNN when she had the chance to this morning. Yikes!

Hey, Brianna, saying "GO BEARS" on CNN just once will not kill you and Cal fans will sing your praises for years after that. The point here is that once people have done something for you, don't forget to thank them. In my case, an email saying, Hey, thanks so much for sending him my way; look what happened!"

That's enough for me, really.

Regardless, I'm glad she's got on a regular schedule. She's finally comfortable behind the camera, after it seemed that she was a bit uncomfortable reading the teleprompter live.

I just wonder if she's still wearing those fishnets?

Ok, I've not wrote this before, but truth be told, she had a wicked set of legs in fishnets and all the guys in the 2995 NFL Draft gallery were going GA GA over Brianna. And if she denies this, she's telling a massive fib! She looked hot, but in the lunch room all the guys totally ignored her as if they were afraid to talk to her, so I figured I would since she was all alone.

That's how it all started.

This is Brianna's basic background:

Brianna Keilar (born September 21, 1980) is a recently hired general assignment reporter for CNN in the Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked for CNN Newsource as a national correspondent, also in Washington, D.C.

Keilar started in television news as an intern and production assistant at KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland, California. In 2001, she went to work as a general assignment reporter at KIMA, the CBS affiliate in Yakima, Washington. During that same time, she also worked in radio as a morning show personality and weekend news reader.

In 2003, Keilar moved to New York to be an anchor, reporter and producer for CBS News on mtvU, a newscast that aired on MTV's college network. At CBS News on mtvU, she covered the 2004 presidential primaries and election from New Hampshire, Boston and New York. Brianna also covered events like the 2005 NFL Draft for MTV-U. Keilar was 23 when she fill-in anchored on CBS News' overnight newscast, Up to the Minute, for the first time.

She was also a freelance reporter for CBS Evening News Weekend Edition before moving over to CNN.


Let's see if we can get Brianna's Cal attention... HEY BRIANNA, GO BEARS!!!!

Fingerpuppets this Saturday North Beach Grant And Green



The Fingerpuppets will be at the famous North Beach restaurant Grant & Green this Saturday. For a sample of their music, just click on the videos below:

I will Survive



"Sedated"

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Tony West Of Obama For America On Rev. Wright And Superdelegates



At the California State Democratic Convention, Oakland-resident Tony West took time to talk with me in this video about the fight for Superdelegates and the Rev. Wright issue and the Obama campaign's position on both from his perspective as Obama for America Northern California Finance Chair and Field Director.