SXSW Has "Blacks in Tech Meetup Tonight at the Carver"

I saw this on the SXSW website, and would you believe I've still not been to a SXSW!  Terrible me.  But I'm happy to report SXSW is hosting the "Blacks in Tech Meetup Tonight at the Carver" as the decription reads, "this event celebrates our ongoing effort to bring a more diverse lineup of panelists to SXSW Interactive. The Blacks in Technology Meetup is open to new media professionals as well as those who are hoping to break into this industry. In other words, no badge required to attend."

That's awesome and worth more commentary.  A great effort.  I'm happy to see this and wish I was there. 

Bob Barr Uses Twitter - Bet John McCain Never Heard Of It

Hey, do you Twitter? Twitter is the social networking system where one can send a short post of up to 150 characters on anything and post it to their Twitter profile and from a cell phone. It's a handy system and even a good Internet traffic strategy as well as a way to just call for help or send out news. You'd expect Barack Obama to Twitter, but a conservative? Enter Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr -- he does Twitter and quite frequently it seems.

I just ran accross this post on Tech President reporting that Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr uses Twitter. It reads:

I'm sitting in the Austin airport waiting to board my Southwest flight to Houston and on home to BWI after a great conference at Netroots Nation. Who sits down two rows away but Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr. I went on over to ask what anyone would ask: do you Twitter for yourself?

Indeed, Barr says that he does twitter on his own. Barr joins the growing ranks of Twittering elected officials like John Culbertson and Tim Ryan. But unlike fellow Presidential candidate Barack Obama, Barr twitters himself. No staff, no help. (And that may explain why his tweets are a bit...off, at times.

So, congratulations, Congressman Barr, on taking the dive and Twittering for yourself. Have a great flight and and keep the tweets coming.

Heck. I'll bet John McCain never heard of Twitter!

Teacher Sex Scandal Again - Man Had Sex 20 Times With 18-Year-Old Student

Generally, publicly-reported Teacher / Student sex scandals involved women instructors and young boys. Not this time. Even though the girl is 18, this story involves a male teacher at Travis High School and not in Florida, but in Austin, Texas. The teacher, Allen James Cole, faces a charge of "an improper relationship between educator and student", and is a 2nd degree felony.

KXAN in Austin, Texas reports:

AUSTIN, TEXAS (KXAN)-- Austin police arrested government teacher Allen James Cole on the charge of having "an improper relationship" with an 18-year-old Travis High School student.

Another teacher notified police about the inappropriate relationship between Cole and the student. According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by KXAN.com, the student told police she had met Cole, 34, several times at his apartment between May 6 and May 10. The student told police she had sex with Cole more than 20 times over that 5-day period.

The girl was able to describe the furnishings in the apartment's living room and bedroom. A search warrant confirmed the details the girl identified.

The charge, an improper relationship between educator and student, is a 2nd degree felony.

The Austin Independent School District could not be reached for comment.

But it makes you wonder with all of these accounts posted on Internet websites, in some cases places like Badjocks.com and the "TeacherTrash" blog that cover only these stories or related tales, how many actual relationships like this are out there but not known!

This video explains why -- in that case -- women teachers would decide to wreck their careers for sex with a student.

SXSW - Austin, Texas Swings Digital Media South Away From SF Bay Area

Now, I've been to Austin and went to the University of Texas at Arlington just up the way between Dallas and Ft. Worth. Austin was always called "The Berkeley Of The South" but that was from the perspective of nutso Texas conservatives. Now, I think Austin should be seen as a national capital of digital media, or at least the presentation of it. Just look at SXSW.

South By Southwest has been going on since 1987, but since it added the film and interactive media festivals it's really taken off and now with the growth of digital media, it's growth is viral. Viral because it's a festival about content related for digital media, and digital media itself, and then it's reported about using, you guessed it, digital media. A unique convergence. Take a look at this video blog:



I increasingly get the idea that the excitement in digital media is as much in cities like Austin or New York as it is in the Bay Area. We've got nothing like SXSW and yet it's something perfectly Bay Area. I think the main problem here is the cost of living is driving away the creative people that feed the digital media community. What's more the problem is that the Bay Area leaders are too out of touch to see this as a crisis.

When more cities -- or maybe that one city like Austin -- starts luring Bay Area firms away, then they'll wake up. But California's lost a lot of movie production activity for the same reason, so maybe not.