Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Digital Britain? How About Digital Oakland?
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
On YouTube.com
The Twitterverse is abuzz with the news of the "Digital Britain" report introduced by Stephen Andrew Carter, the Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting or "Lord Carter" in the UK. The idea of the report is to lay a framework for future development of the digital media industry in Britain. But this is a terrible first start; it's just a PDF report! (You can get it here!)
When I think "digital media" I expect a video, podcast, and blog complete with a website of some kind. Not in this case. There's no real good website at all, just pages and a forum that has way down in the page an embed of a video from the first Digital Britain event, a stodgy affair featuring a bunch of older British white guys, rather than a diverse set of young people, the common theme in the industry.
That's the problem.
Digital industry policy should be formed with the most common consumers of it in the room, and the suited group in the video's not it; the grassroots bloggers, programmers, and vloggers are. It's no wonder Digital Britain's policy's appear to favor large old media telecommunications firms (an indefinite 3G license to original holders without competition for them is a terrible idea) almost at the expense of the little but innovative players in digital media. Moreover it seems to be some kind of rationale for the funneling of public dollars to a few big companies, like iTV.
The other problem with the report is that it focuses on Britain as if the rest of the World doesn't exist. In the matter of copywrites, the report explains a desire to essentially liberalize rules but how? What if the material doesn't come from the UK, as is often the case? I think the whole initiative's a good start but an example of what not to do; such efforts must be both "local" and international.
Local in that there should be a "Digital Oakland" where Oaklanders set their own digital media policy directives. Or Digital London, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and so on. In fact, Oakland's a terrific place to have a "Digital Oakland" conference. We've got our share of large firms, like search engine operator Ask.com, and a healthy group of members of the Twitterverse coupled with vloggers like myself, a government that's really behind the curve on this stuff (sorry but it is), and a large set of people who want to know more about how to access and use digital media for business and for life. Oakland's perfect.
Digital Oakland. I like the sound of it.
Iran Elections: Iran's Government tries to block the Internet
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
On YouTube.com
For the third straight day, protests have rocked Iran from large cities like Tehran to small towns and villages. The very idea that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be reelected in a fixed vote count has stirred the passions of millions of Iranians and the World's watching this revolution in the making.
Twitter, again, has been the communications focus of the goings on in Iran, almost exclusively. The micro-blogging service's importance has become so great the U.S. State Department asked the San Francisco firm to avoid shutting down for maintenance, but it did, for just one hour and according to the Twitter blog, just enough time to increase capacity to handle the demands of this event.
The amount of information communicated through Twitter has been of stagger proportions. While Kara Swisher may write that some say Twitter is "inane and half-baked",, the fact that Iranians can use their cell phones to tweet information and share photos has done more than the mainstream media in telling the World what's happening. And what's happening now is the Iran government's attempting to block all Internet information from "escaping" the country; they've targeted blogs, websites, and now email accounts. The security minders have used Twitter to ferret out the in-country communicators but without much success; the constant use of new tags combined with the Iran government's lack of expertise with Twitter, has made their effort a cat-and-mouse game.
Meanwhile the information continues:
redditgirl reports Gmail is accessible by proxy. Another tweet by someone reports on gunshot wounds being treated. Yet another reads that Yahoo main can be had via proxy. A whole new set of web proxies has developed to get around the Iranian Government. And at this point you're wondering just what the hell a proxy is? The simplest explaination is proxies a way of using another online IP identification to get around systems that block standard ones. This cyber organic process of evolution is a wonder to watch and to be a part of. People around the World, but especially in North America and Europe, have taken part in the formation of a way out for Iran protest information. Essentially, the World is working against the Iranian Government. Consider this "Cyber War Guide" to helping protestors:
The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.
1. Do NOT publicize proxy IP’s over Twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DIRECT MESSAGE them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.
2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.
3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t re-tweet impetuously, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.
4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.
5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicize their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind…
This has been passed and copied from blog to website to blog, and now, it's news and away from the clutches of the Iranian Government. (When one starts to refer to a government in terms reserved for monster movies, you know it's got a problem. And on that note, the blog iRevolution has great tips on using the Internet to get information out and around "represssive environments.")
Fake Twitter Accounts
And on the matter of repressive environments comes a list from the blog Twitspan.org of "fake Twitter accounts" believed to be created by the Iranian Government. One is to block these accounts:
# http://twitter.com/Amir1982
# http://twitter.com/_SuperGreen_
# http://twitter.com/globalmeeting
# http://twitter.com/ghb78
# http://twitter.com/am12976
# http://twitter.com/iranianfree2k9
# http://twitter.com/FreeMediaNews
# http://www.twitter.com/jfcrow (unconfirmed)
# http://twitter.com/Karmuk (Retweeting same message over and over)
# http://twitter.com/chartingstocks (Writing fake articles on the Iranian Election Twitters)
# http://twitter.com/obamaspy
# http://twitter.com/IranisFree
# http://twitter.com/serv_
The Beauty of Flickr in all this mess
Twitter's also a kind of portal to other online social networking content platforms, like Flickr.
And what's happening on Flickr's a mess.
One of the most popular destinations has been the Flickr page owned by faramarz, who 's uploaded photos of protests and violence are both breathtaking and shocking.
I've said this to anyone regardless of their attention span: New Media is organic and not something one can "control" because it's nature - in technology and in application - is to spread out, seek new areas, and avoid being trapped. It's a pure reflection of and expression of the human desire for freedom. A fact that scares the hell out of control freaks everywhere.
We're witnessing the full-flowering of the potential of New Media as it has evolved to this point. The next level will be when we're able to see live streams of events via Twitter or a Twitter-like system. Perhaps the cellphone-based Qik.com service holds the key as it improves in product quality. Time will tell, and it seems sooner rather than later.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Police invasion on people tehran vanak Sq 13 June 2009
From persianlover2007 on YouTube - This is how Iranian government supports democracy, this happened after presidential election when people protest for cheating on their vote.
Rivals Both Claim Victory in Iran's Election
From the AP: Iran's Interior Ministry claimed hard-line incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was heading for a landslide victory in the country's presidential elections. But his pro-reform rival countered that he was the clear victor. (June 13)
Lakers Win! Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson gain redemption
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler
After a long time without a ring, a seven year drought that saw a number of unfortunate events for LA Lakers star guard Kobe Bryant, he and "the zen master" , his coach Phil Jackson, who had to wonder if he's ever see the winning side of an NBA Finals contest, won the NBA Championship in fine fashion, defeating the Orlando Magic in five games, winning the last one tonight 99-86. It's the Lakers' 15th NBA title, Jackson's 10th, and Bryant's fourth, and certainly the sweetest.
Kobe gets his ring!
First, hats off to the Magic, who made it thrilling with two overtime games and heroic play down the stretch from center Dwight Howard, but in the end, the Lakers will was too much for the Magic to overcome.
The Lakers, and indeed, Bryant and Jackson, wanted to erase all of the bad feelings from the total beat-down the Boston Celtics gave to them last year and from the equally abusive talk aimed at Bryant from former teammate Shaq O'Neal, who left the Lakers and almost immediately won a title with the Miami Heat, then rubbed it in Bryant's face, almost on an annual basis.
No more.
Bryant played with a scowl on his face and something to prove. And he did. That he's a complete player. A mature person. A father. A community leader. And a nice person. That he did it with Phil Jackson as his coach comes as no surprise, but for a time it seemed Jackson was to be religated to the "used to" bin, as in, "he used to be a great coach." Hey, let's give credit to Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchek for the acquisition of Pau Gasol who filled in the missing piece as "enforcer" and for adding Derek Fisher, who's clutch "threes" were the difference in two finals games, but Jackson put them all together then stepped back and let them play.
Fisher said it best about Jackson after the last game on ABC: "He let's players play." Jackson doesn't try to control his players, he treats them as men and as talented athletes. He gives them an open canvas on which to paint, and his players created a masterpiece of a win. It's for that reason Jackson's the greatest coach in NBA history.
The zen master is back.
UPDATE: on his (verified) Twitter account twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ, Shaq O'Neal was active to be sure. After the Lakers won he posted this:
O'Neal also tweeted that he's not leaving the Phoenix Suns for Cleveland and Le Bron James.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Iran Elections: Iranian Culture to blame for a rigged outcome
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler
Iran held its national election process to select its next president on Friday, June 12th. With all the televised demonstrations and Internet buzz it was logical to believe Iran's current leader, the not-well-liked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , would be beaten by his progressive challenger Mr. Hossein Mousavi. Indeed, late on Friday in America, some reports were that Mousavi was on pace to upset Ahmadinejad considering the vote count. But by Saturday that was not to be; the Iranian Elections Commission annouced that Ahmadinejad was the winner with 62.6 percent of the popular vote compared to 33.75 percent for Mousavi.
Did he really win?
The outcome upset many who believed it was rigged and caused violent street protests that are still going on as of this writing on Sunday (Twitter is the best place to keep up with the developments). The belief that Ahmadinejad's victory may have been engineered is one commmunicated in modern fashion by text message and the Internet, but has its roots in a set of very real considerations borne of Iranian culture:
1) Any unbiased reporting of the election process is improbable because Iran punishes investigative journalists, as happened to Roxana Saberi, the woman who was recently held in detention for over three months for being a "spy" when all the student reporter had done was write about real life in Iran and Islam including pro-American groups, whereas the government sends videos of constant pockets of anti-American demonstrations. She was released on May 10th, just one month before election day. In Iran, journalists are imprisoned, threatened, and alledgedly killed.
2) Researcher Muhammad Sahimi looked at the election data from Iran's Interior Ministry and determined that there's a perfect linear relationship between the votes that Ahmadinejad received and those that Mousavi got, such that Mousavi's votes are perfectly one-half of Ahmadinejad's for the data set analyzed and the correlation coefficient is .9995 - almost one, which means almost perfect. That's weird, folks. There should be a non-linear vote count - in other words, one for you, two for me; one for you, none for me; and so on.
3) Juan Cole, a Mid East observer of the Global American Institute, holds that Mousavi is a Azeri from the Azerbajan province, of which Tabriz is the capital, yet Ahmadinejad won that city with 57 percent of the vote. In other words, Mousavi failed to carry his home region's capital city which many are questioning given the common election rule that a campaigner generally wins the vote in their home region, even in a loss. (Cole and Sahimi did not share information as of this writing and I'm not even sure they know of each other.)
4) Given Mousavi's reportedly poor relations with top Iranian leaders, Cole charges that the country's electoral commission was told to falsify the vote count.
All of this gurantees that the election was "rigged" to some degree. But just by how much is known only to those who did the rigging. The fact this idea is now commonly accepted by many, perhaps millions, should be of concern to President Ahmadinejad, who can't say he has a true mandate to run Iran as he sees fit. He has to "open the government" if only to quell future massive uprisings. He can't matain the practices he established entering the election; his true enemy, the Internet, will prevent that.
Still no plea deal: Burress lawyer says gun case to be delayed until Septembe
Still no plea deal: Burress lawyer says gun case to be delayed until September
By Associated Press
4:40 PM EDT, June 12, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress will have to wait a while longer before he knows the legal consequences of accidentally shooting himself with an unlicensed pistol.
Defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman said Burress will appear in court Monday for a brief hearing. Brafman said Burress and prosecutors have yet to agree on a plea deal and the case will be adjourned until September.
Burress shot himself in the thigh on Nov. 29 in a Manhattan nightclub. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to 3½ years in prison. Burress has pleaded not guilty and is free on $100,000 bail.
Burress caught the game-winning touchdown for the Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl. He is a free agent after the team released him on April 3.
By Associated Press
4:40 PM EDT, June 12, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress will have to wait a while longer before he knows the legal consequences of accidentally shooting himself with an unlicensed pistol.
Defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman said Burress will appear in court Monday for a brief hearing. Brafman said Burress and prosecutors have yet to agree on a plea deal and the case will be adjourned until September.
Burress shot himself in the thigh on Nov. 29 in a Manhattan nightclub. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to 3½ years in prison. Burress has pleaded not guilty and is free on $100,000 bail.
Burress caught the game-winning touchdown for the Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl. He is a free agent after the team released him on April 3.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
David Letterman Kathy Griffin June 10th 2009
On Letterman's show, Kathy Griffin calls Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a "moron" and her husband "a tool" as Dave cringes.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger answers Ellen DeGeneres
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
Who's minding the Guv's tweets?
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the target of comedian Ellen DeGeneres Twitter and email-based campaign to stop his proposal to reduce the time animals are kept in shelters from six days to three days, answered DeGeneres on Twitter today:
Basically the Guv's claim is shelters themselves make the timing decision, but that's passing the buck, really. The bottom line is the reduced funding would almost certainly cause such a lowering of time, which is what outrages Ellen and many who've been informed of Schwarzenegger's proposal.
- @TheEllenShow We are eliminating funding but shelters determine time before euthanization.about 12 hours ago from web
- @TheEllenShow We can only spend money we have and can't afford many programs, for example, health care for children.about 12 hours ago from web
But what's got me really twinged is the popular pol's first tweet to Ellen that refers to cutting health care for kids! Kids. The focus of the tweet was kids. Why even mention kids? Think about it. That's going from the frying pan to the fire in one tweet; from defenseless animals to defenseless kids. Is there a pattern here?
That's enough to start another Twitter campaign (follow me on Twitter!) so strong that "Tell Gov" becomes a trending topic yet again. The Guv bothered - heck, went out of his way - to mention cutting health care for kids. I mean take a look at this:
That's the actual screen shot of what appeared on the Guv's page at the time of this writing, in case someone out their thinks I'm writing fantasy. Using "health care for children" as an example of programs the Governor claims the state can't afford was a bad idea. I mean, is this really Arnold? It's certainly his official Twitter page!
I sometimes wonder who's writing the Guv's tweets, a staffer or Arnold himself? Something tells me Arnold would be less ham-handed in his tweets than what I've seen today. That's the kind of line I'd expect a young, conservative, childless, never-seen-much-of-urban-America intern to produce on Twitter, not Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This is getting more and more interesting.
As of this writing, no response from Ellen, but I'm putting this in her replies box, so stay tuned!
BTW, I've been sick, real sick, so my output is low; hopefully I didn't get that dang you-know-what flu! Grrrr!!!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Ellen DeGeneres Starts Twitter Campaign "Tell Gov. Arnold"
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
Important: Tell Gov. Arnold not to limit time animals are kept in shelters from 6 days to 3. Email him: http://www.gov.ca.gov Pass it on.
In other words, what the Governor's proposing is that an animal that currently just six days time in an animal shelter before it is sentenced to death by euthanasia would have only three days time, which, as Franny Syufy informs us on her blog is...
barely time for owners to discover their cat missing, track him down to a local shelter, then arrange for his release.Why the Governors' people decided to pick on defenseless animals is beyond me, but they did it and it's out in the open. So much so that several Internet petitions have been established and DeGeneres has employed her vast new media reach - including her Facebook page - to spread the word in the hopes of turning around the Governor's apparent position. So far the Guv's Twitter updates don't include any word on his personal view on the matter, but this online movement's just hit Twitter with full-force, thanks to Ellen.
Stay tuned.
NFL Insider: Philadelphia Eagles
From CBS: Are the Eagles and Donovan McNabb primed for another run through the playoffs? Jason Horowitz and NFL.com analyst Pat Kirwan take an in depth look at the Philadelphia Eagles.
David Letterman Top 10 Sarah Palin Highlights
What Palin fans are upset about is #2 where he says she's updating her slutty flight attendant look. Letterman's appologized for the other comments that were directed at Bristol Palin, but Palin's working this issue hard. Not over yet.
Parkway Theater: Pat Kernighan must lead now!
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
The "Save The Parkway Theater" movement, once a seemingly happy collection of like-minded Oaklanders, has rapidly degenerated into the same kind of feckless factionalization that's doomed the effort to keep the Athletics baseball team in Oakland.
Yes, once again, we have groups that don't talk to each other and with different agendas and a common problem: a lack of leadership from the elected officials involved. In the case of the Athletics, it was Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums (until he began to really insert himself into the process and call for meetings) and now it's Oakland's District Two Councilmember Pat Kernighan.
(A bit of housecleaning: I like Pat; I really do. Always have. But I don't like the way she handles community controversy and this is an example.)
Four Factions
When the Parkway Speakeasy Theater closed after its last show on March 22nd 2009, a rag-tag group of neighbors, concerned Oaklanders, and even people outside Oakland, banded together to create the "Save The Parkway" movement. The first meeting of the "organization" was successful, and Councilmember Kernighan arrived to give her valued input.
But after that the wheels came off the wagon. Once a potential buyer of the theater was located, factions developed:
1) The Parkway Employees - This group of loyal former workers at the theater got notices that it was going to close just four days before it happened. They're rightly upset, but now, months later, they're trying to find jobs. The main "Save The Parkway" members worked to raise money to help them, but the former employees I talked to, while they appreciated their help, felt it was delivered in an over-zealous way, with "out of the blue" calls and contacts from people they didn't know.
2) Save The Parkway - Peter Prato is the spark plug behind this Internet-based organization that has marshalled support for reopening the theater. What's happpened here from my point of view, and the many calls and emails I've gotten, and a video I've not yet installed, is that once Kernighan went to work behind the scenes, it seemed they felt a bit "pushed out" of the proceedings. That's not from them; that's my read alone.
3) Catherine and Kyle Fisher - Once loved by everyone, now hated by some, and still loved by many, has seen their business collapse under the combined weight of the economy, the changing movie climate, declining revenues and rising business costs. No one of the other two groups talks to them or wants to, sadly. The Fisher's view on all of this is hard to determine for publication; they've gone almost completely underground.
4) Councilmember Pat Kernighan and Councilmember Jean Quan - Ok. Now, you're scratching your head on this one, right? What's Jean Quan got to do with this? That's what I was wondering when Quan showed up in the middle of the May 31st Parkway Community Meeting and presented herself as a concerned citizen (who happens to be running for Mayor of Oakland; my view interview with Quan will be installed Sunday June 14th). At first I wondered if Pat knew Jean was coming to the meeting and gave Quan her blessing as the Parkway's in Kernighan's district. All things considered it would be more appropriate for At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan to have attended the meeting or for Quan to be there with Kernighan. But frankly it looked weird to me.
There's a lot of drama from these factions but all of it can be taken away or at least lessened by one action: Councilmember Pat Kernighan calling what former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb would call an "all-hands" meeting, with everyone at the table. And I mean everyone Pat can think of regardless of her relationship with them. (Get the message, Pat?)
This is Councilmember Kernighan's time to shine. Right now, she's adding to the gossip mill (what Bobb calls "sniper fire") rather than rising above it. This community development problem is in her District and its rapidly spinning out of control.
It's Councilmember Kernighan's time to step up and lead.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Carrie Prejean is Fired as Miss California
From CelebTV on YouTube: Carrie Prejean loses her crown for violating her contract, and this time, even pageant boss Donald Trump wants her gone.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger follows Zennie62 on Twitter!
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
Ok. As of this writing I have over 3,500 Twitter followers. Normally one follows those with more Twitter followers, unless the Twitter account has quality Twitterers following them; that's true for me. I've learned that such a position attracts the larger Twitterers, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has over 200,000 Twitter followers himself. Now, he's following me!
What? You've got issues with him? Hey, it's Ahhhold, baby! Yah know? Of course I followed him back, which means we're Twitter friends. Very cool. A pipeline to California's governor who has a pipeline to this blogger - nothing to sneeze at. It's prized. It doesn't mean I voted for his initiatives in the last election; I didn't. But truth be told I voted for him twice in the California gubenatorial races starting in 2002.
Why?
Because as a Dem, I felt the California Democrats needed a shakeup, an ass kicking; we'd become a bit too arrogant in our power and forgot then that the party serves the people, not the other way around.
For me, the personal last straw came at a fund raiser I went to a few years back when as a certain big time California Senator player in the party walked by me and as I said "Hello Senator. How are you" told me to, ah, blank off, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Now, I'd never known this person and was just being polite; he walked by at close range. Why he did that, I don't know, and others tell me that's just the way he is. Regardless, I'd had it. That happened to be 2001, the year before the year of the great California recall election. The one that put Arnold Schwarzenegger in the governor's chair and I was one of the Democrats who crossed the voting aisle to make it happen. I figured his democratic wife Maria Shriver would keep him in check, perfectly in the middle, and I was sort of correct.
Ah, governor, leave education alone! Unlike the Pink Floyd song, we do need an education. But seriously, California's economic growth was fueled by its universities. The guvs objective should be to restore the UC system to 90's levels of public funding as a percentage of total funding. Then, Berkeley received over 65 percent of its budget from the government and it was affordable; not any more. We've got to change that.
The Leader
While Schwarzenegger will not go down as the best governor we've had, he will be considered the best leader we've had. There's an idea that California's ungovernorable anyway; I happen to disagree with the idea, but it's a powerful one. The initiative process is seen as the problem, but it's not. The simple fact is the state doesn't take in enough money because after Prop 13's passage in 1978, lowering property taxes to a uniform one percent state wide, our tax revenue has been chronically low relative to need and that emerged as a problem starting after 1987. That's the fact, jack. The problem's not complicated at all.
First, we need about $30 billion from the federal government. Then, we need a two-tiered property tax system: one for businesses at a higher rate and leave the current level for residential structures.
Arnold's Tweets
Ok. What's our gov tweeting about? Have a look:
- Check out this tool from LATimes: http://bit.ly/L2Bph. It is your chance to make the tough budget decisions. Tell me how you do.
- Met with the treasurer and the controller. We need to act to close this $24 bil deficit by June 15 to avoid running out of cash.
- I love public participation so I want to hear your ideas for solving our budget, no matter how radical. Use #myidea4CA.
- I don't want to cut your CalGrant, @heidi_luvs_jery. I hate these cuts. But we can't spend $ we don't have. I welcome creative solutions.
- FresBee Ed Brd ltr today. Submit q's with sub. line "Governor question" to metro@fresnobee.com. @scoopy559 will be tweeting.
- I just met with the mayors for the big cities to talk about how we can work together with the budget and to hear their ideas.
- http://twitpic.com/6xydi - I just went upstairs to talk to the Senate leadership about the need to so what it takes to come to an agreem ...
- http://twitpic.com/6wycj - At Calabasas High School discussing our first-in-the-nation Digital Textbooks Initiative.
- http://twitpic.com/6r6wd - Entering Charles Drew University's commencement ceremony
- Don't forget to tune in to ask me questions at 10:45. www.sacbee.com/live.
- Great question, @deelynn39, but remember the day has 24 hrs. If I couldn't find 1 hr for fitness, I would feel like a loser.
- Thanks for the kind words, @LuvenRN. I'm proud of the nurse ed initiative - nursing is so important for the future of health care.
- Thanks, @BigJiggity. State payroll is actually only abt 10% of GenFund. Biggest expense is education followed by soc services and prisons.
- You shouldn't have to be a secret agent to find out where your tax dollars go. Contracts, etc to be posted on web: http://tiny.cc/B1Xob
- I joined the team to bring FIFA World Cup soccer to U.S. & CA in 2018 or 2022. Let's bring it back to USA http://bit.ly/GmgkW
- Tomorrow I'll be at the SacBee Ed Brd taking questions from readers about the budget. Join in at 10:45 am at http://www.sacbee.com/live/
- Today I checked out a VW Passat with a hydrogen fuel cell. Zero emissions - I can already imagine it on the Hydrogen Hwy.
- Just addressed a joint session of the Legislature to urge them to work with me to prove the pundits wrong and get California back on track.
- Weekly video response to some more of your questions. Good night - have a fantastic weekend. http://bit.ly/15qcKW
- I answered a lot of your questions about the Hummer yesterday in this video: http://bit.ly/hhvPw
A read of the Guvs Tweets reveals that he wants us to know what he's working on. A good use of Twitter. I much prefer this information to knowing that he's brushing his teeth. What's of greatest importance is he wants to see your solutions for solving California's budget problems, "no matter how radical."
Smart cookie. The guv knew I was gonna blog this information, so he followed me. Not bad.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
North Korea: Free Journalists Or Face Military Action
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
On YouTube.com
As I write this, video journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to jail for 12 years of hard labor. While they're charged with 'tresspassing" into North Korea during a project where they were reportedly covering the story of the trafficing of women. Interesting that North Korea would not want such a story covered, eh?
I've thought about this and now recall the ideas of my professor Robert Scalapino at Berkeley, who advocated a nuanced way that America could cause this Leninist state to move toward Democracy. But that was 1989; these current moves show a country that has little interest in personal freedom and every interest in power.
Kim Jong-il has assesed the World's economic situation, rightly determined it terrible, and estimated this time was the best to make his move. He wants desperately to be considered the leader of a nuclear power and over the last three weeks alone has made moves that are certainly so provacative as to flirt with the very idea of war.
Why else would he basically kidnap - forget the kangaroo court - Euna Lee and Laura Ling? It was a stupid move to say the least and not just because they're American, but Asian. Kim Jong-il's now managed to piss off everyone not in North Korea, and moved the war clock pretty close to a possible scenario of bombing the hell out of the military installations there, should any harm come to those Americans.
Look, what I think President Obama should do is negotiate with Kim Jong-il even as the U.S. Military and the CIA are planning and executing a strategy of getting Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of jail.
How?
There's got to be a way we can get a radar-invisible helicopter over that area, drop troups in an isolated place nearby at night, shoot anyone who comes to attack them, make way for more troup drops, get over to that prison, break in, and get them. Then as they're out, have the helicopter land, get them on board, and get them out. As they reach altitude, they would be joined by our stealth bombers which would protect them as they fly out and over to South Korea.
Done.
Look. I know this is risky, but frankly I'm totally sick of Kim Jong-il's behavior toward American and the World and North Korea's gone too far. Plus, he's got to answer for interrupting an investigation into female trafficing along his boarders. If Kim Jong-il's trying to test President Obama, he forgets that American citizens will back whatever agressive decision Obama makes.
There's a growing feeling that we're being pushed around because of the perception that our economy's in the tank. First, we had the Somali Pirates, which ended with some casualties but it was necessary. Now this, and it seems miliary action's needed again.
Enough already with North Korea. As The Thing would say, "It's Clobberin' Time!"
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Phil Villapiano holding court
From danfunk on YouTube - "A classic clip from the 2009 Biletnikoff Foundation Charity Golf Tournament, Oakland Raider Legend Phil Villapiano hamming it up with the fans, there was a lot more to it, you had to have been there!"
Friday, June 05, 2009
New Moon | Why Is Twillight / New Moon So Popular?
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler
Maybe you all can help me with this. Ok? Here goes. Why is the Twillight Saga so popular? The official trailer for the movie "New Moon" is out and it looks interesting this Trekker's just not feeling it. Especially since the one person who appears to be the baddy is a rastafarian black guy who's about to get it by a guy, "Jake" who turns into a wolf in mid run.
What's that you say? I've got to read the book series Twillight? I guess so; there's four of em. Look, I've seen the book all over the place: on the BART Train, at the gym, in the hand of a passer by. Almost always a woman between the age of 20 and 50; mostly white or Asian in the Bay Area - seldom black. Just an observation. I've only once seen a guy reading the book. Just an observation.
I have to admit I became more interested in this because the author of the Twillight Saga, Stephanie Meyer, came up with this four-book marvel of success out of a crazy dream she had in 2003 about a 17-year-old girl and a studly vampire who loves her but wants to kill her and suck her blood. Moreover, Meyer, reportedly expecting a $10,000 book advance just to pay off her minivan, got a $750,000 deal, and the book series has sold 17 million copies worldwide, has made her a new millionaire, and...wow.
That's great. For that alone, I'm proud of Stephanie. Hugely so.
But why the heck is it so popular?
Last year, Gawker's Alex Carnevale explained that Vanity Fair's James Wolcott "pulled out the stops" in trying to pull together all of the pop-culture referrences that seem to have found their way into Twillight:
"Here's the full list of cultural references from Wolcott's piece: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, Vampire Academy, Gossip Girl, The Morganville Vampires, Vampire Kisses, The Vampire Diaries, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Into the Wild, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, Six Feet Under, Harry Potter, Debussy, Rudolf Nureyev, Chris Isaak, Michelangelo, Chopin, Superman, the gays, Sarah Palin, James Dean, David Lynch, Bob Dylan, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, and Brideshead Revisited. An impressive array, to say the least."
Ok. But that's not necessarily a receipe for success as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So I'm using new media to take the question to you: why is the Twillight Saga so popular? Also, when I look at the Vanity Fair photo here:
All I see is the common picture of white American youth plus one African American and one other person of color out of 12 people. Interesting. It's a photo so common it implies anyone who's not "that" need not be at the party for the most part, except as a token. And therein lies the problem for me, specifically.
Why does the Twillight Saga have to be an almost totally white picture of a fantasy? Because Meyer's Mormon and it's her dream? I'm not comfortable with that notion only because I don't know Meyer and admire what she's done. Since I want to like her, I'm afraid to go that route of thinking.
I'm just being honest. I'm just thinking, which I do too much of perhaps. But I just can't accept what's tossed at me chapter and verse. Sorry.
That feeling of racial isolation is a bit bothersome to me, especially as our society becomes ever more integrated. I don't think for a moment most readers of Twillight think about the story in this way as presented in the book. But the movies -- the movies give a different take because they paint the picture for us.
See? Our ability to create a fantasy and install ourselves within it, skin color and all, is taken away. Then here comes Vanity Fair to cement the deal.
The real wildly popular story of an interracial set of as President Obama would say "folks" has yet to be told. But I have the feeling one can't achieve success by setting out to write that story. I suppose some guy, somewhere, will have a dream about a 20-year old African American boy and a space alien in the form of a hot-for-teacher, 40-year old hardbody Asian woman who wants to kill him and take his bones back to some home planet in Orion's Belt, but is so in love with him she winds up...
You get the idea.
Hmmm....
Obama on Iraq, Iran and Israel in Cairo
From the AP: President Barack Obama addressed a wide array of issues, including the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in his address to Muslims in Cairo Thursday. (June 4)
Susan Boyle Released From Hospital; Will Sing For Demi Moore
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
Susan Boyle, who's set to perform for President Barack Obama, has been released from Priory Clinic in London, where she was treated for emotional exhaustion, and has been offered $30,000 to sing at Demi Moore's wedding anniversary event in Los Angeles (hey, I thought hubby Ashton Kutcher was supposed to plan this?).
At any rate the American offers are starting to pop up for Boyle. Meanwhile, Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden said on Larry King Live on Tuesday of this week, that the show was not at fault for Boyle's problems stating that the contestants are all "extraordinarily well looked after."
Are you kidding me? Really, Amanda? So why did this happen if that's so? Moreover, I don't think Holden would have come on King's show were it not to do damage control regarding Boyle's horrible treatment. I still think she should have quit early and I said so here:
But maybe, as someone observed on Twitter, (where she's still a hot topic as of this post time) Boyle's coming in second place on BGT was the best thing to happen for her. Perhaps all of this will work out in a sideways fashion. But the big new issue is how people are treated on television. There should be a government review of what happens to new celebrities and what responsibilities TV producers should take, including explaining the risks that come with being on television to those who want to appear on a show, and protecting the persons from harm.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Susan Boyle to Sing For President Obama July 4th
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
Susan Boyle, who I explained on Monday had a total right to hate the show "Britain's Got Talent," after the way the show's producers treater her and the media hounded her into an emotional breakdown landing her in a mental hospital called Priory Clinic in the UK, and may miss the planned BGT concert tour, has been invited to sing before US President Barack Obama on the 4th of July.
According to the website Entertainmentwise.com and the Daily Record, Boyle's brother Gerry said "Her dream is still very much alive. In fact, it's only just starting... She's been battered non-stop for the last seven weeks and it has taken its toll. But she'll be looking forward now to the Fourth of July."
It's fitting that the American President Obama would step in to clean up a British mess with the way Boyle, an overnight international superstar, was treated. Now, Boyle can get her rest, forget the zoo tour that the BGT minders have set for her, and sing for Obama.
Boyle expressed it was her dream to sing before the Queen of England, but now she'll get to croon before the most powerful person in the World.
That's just rewards for her, and punishment for the producers of Britain's Got Talent. Bravo, President Obama!
If you didn't know what happened to Boyle this week, here's my video as a recap:
Oh, and no, there's more news out there. Stick around...
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Rush Limbaugh's Wrong, Sonia Sotomayor's Not Racist
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler
I'm sure anyone black or white can relate to this because it's a common conversation:
White person to me: "I as a white person don't know what it's like to be in your shoes as someone black.
Me to the white person: "Well, you can do it; I don't mean to be insulting but it's called empathy. I have a lot of white friends who get the experience just by having black friends."
I've had that episode replayed over and over again in my life, though less so today than in the past. I've never thought the white person who was in the conversation - and they have been many people - was racist. Indeed, I did think they were race-concious and that's a very good thing.
Why? Simple. Because that person's not being colorblind and for that moment at least recognizes that it's really impossible and a total joke to be "colorblind". We make choices positively or negatively who we want to associate with regarding a person's skin color every day. In my case, having a diverse set of friends is extremely important because it shapes and keeps in check my "world view". A racially complex set of friends keeps you're mind sharp and makes life fun.
It's for that reason I assert Supreme Court Justice Designate Sonia Sotomayor's not racist. She's certainly as race-concious as the white persons who've made the statement I opened with, but that's not being racist. To be racist is to put another person down because of their skin. Period. Moreover Sotomayor's 2001 comment in a very long speech given at U.C. Berkeley (and called "A Latina Judge's Voice) reads like this:
"First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Think about that, and combine it with the statement I presented and made to me many times by someone white. It's the flip-side of the white person's statement. Think about it. Think again. Sotomayor's 2001 comment essentially confirms what has been said to me many times and some of the white persons who said this were, drumroll please, conservative and all male come to think of it.
So what's the real problem? Well, there isn't one; it's manufactured by a conservative PR machine led by radio yeller Rush Limbaugh, always feeding the minders of his $400 million broadcast contract, and repeated by television producers seeking ratings to maintain a level of post-election political interest. Gotta have something to get your blood going and this is red meat for some folks, especially Limbaugh.
But Rush, in his zeal to pin Sotomayor as racist, has started telling lies. He said on his show today, Wednesday,...
"I mean, when she says that she'd do a better job than a white guy, what is it? It's racism. It's reverse racism, whatever but it's still racism. She would bring a form of racism, bigotry to the court."
But she didn't say that.
The comment I presented by Sotomayor above was made in a remark about how judges have responded to civil rights cases over our history. Since that has impacted people of color, Sotomayor was simply saying a wise person of color -- in this case a Latina woman judge - with experience would hopefully make a better decision in that context than someone white and male who did not have the experience.
We have to pay attention to what is said here in specific. Indeed, if I were to challenge Rush in person he'd have to admit he was wrong, if he was honest with me, of course. The bottom line is because we as a World don't know how to talk about race, the door's open for folks like Rush to confuse the discourse.
We Need To Learn How To Talk About Race
The real problem is some people, regardless of color, don't know how to talk about race. Too often conversations focus just on their personal perception of a racial issue rather than a broad read of what people do. (I'm not discounting the value of a personal perception, just the application of it. Ok? Really stop and think about what I'm explaining before you react here. Thanks.)
For example, I tried to explain to a friend why her friend, who was making and selling a product like the terrible "Obama Waffles", was doing a bad thing, very racist in that it took a black stereotype and used it to make fun of President Obama. I further explained that her friend's product would be roundly panned in the blogsphere and give her friend a bad name.
My friend, who's white and not involved with the product, reacted defensively and then launched into an explaination of why she's not racist, which wasn't my assertion at all as I was talking about her friend's product not her. I explained that we're not talking about her or her experiences and I know she's not racist, but she's got to understand how society around her is changing and what's acceptable and what's not. After a time of a lot of frank and a bit rought talk, she understood what I was saying and said she'd talk to her friend. Oh, and we're still the best of friends.
But episodes like that mean we need to take stock of what's happening beyond our personal experience. It's good to get a constant statistical and content read on how society is changing (Marketers are you paying attention?) so you're not caught in the backwash of social change.
The GOP's fighting this problem right now and Limbaugh - as the GOP's standard bearer - by calling Sotomayor racist, has once again revealed its own racism.
The reality is, even with people like former Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-Colo.) staffer, conservative writer, and activist Marcus Epstein pleading guilty to the hate crime of calling an innocent black woman the N-word and striking her with a karate chop in 2007 (he says he wants a second chance and accepts that he behaved terribly, which is an understatement.), we've still come a long way in America. You don't have to be black to understand the black experience or Latino to "get" the latino experience, or Asian to feel the Asian experience, or white to get the white experience, but all of us try, accept our physical limitations, and listen.
A lot. With love.
Yeah, that word again.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Susan Boyle Says She Hates "Britain's Got Talent," So Do I!
http://www.zennie62.com - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/a... - After the news of Susan Boyle's admission to a mental clinic for evaluation, I just plain hit the ceiling. I'd followed the stories of Boyle's much-justified outbursts last week - "much-justified" because Boyle was reportedly deliberately harassed by a couple of evil journalists who set out to make her upset - and could not understand how the producers of the now-popular TV Show "Britain's Got Talent" (BGT) would not get protection for Boyle and shield her away from harm.
I then watched in horror as news outlets around the World put all the weight of the issue on her, writing she's "having a meltdown", "SuBo goes loco", or "flies off the handle all the time" or words to that effect, and figured that it was some elaborate PR stunt possibly developed by the BGT minder just to hype up the ratings to see what she would do during the finals, then cement the show's popularity because of the upset loss that was sure to occur since the call-in audience's vote would be effected by the news of her problems.
That's what happened. After the show, Boyle reportedly ran down a hallway screaming "I hate this show." Well I agree with Ms. Boyle 100 percent. The way BGT treated Boyle, and really a portion of the World handled her, says nothing good about our Western culture and everything bad about how we've "evolved" into the 21st Century.
Susan Boyle Says She Hates "Britain's Got Talent," So Do I!
More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!
On YouTube.com
After the news of Susan Boyle's admission to a mental clinic for evaluation, I just plain hit the ceiling. I'd followed the stories of Boyle's much-justified outbursts last week - "much-justified" because Boyle was reportedly deliberately harassed by a couple of evil journalists who set out to make her upset - and could not understand how the producers of the now-popular TV Show "Britain's Got Talent" (BGT) would not get protection for Boyle and shield her away from harm.
I then watched in horror as news outlets around the World put all the weight of the issue on her, writing she's "having a meltdown", "SuBo goes loco", or "flies off the handle all the time" or words to that effect, and figured that it was some elaborate PR stunt possibly developed by the BGT minders just to hype up the ratings as people tuned in to see what she would do at the final event, then cement the show's popularity because of the upset loss that was sure to occur since the call-in audience's vote would be effected by the news of her problems.
That's what happened. After the show, Boyle reportedly ran down a hallway screaming "I hate this show." Well I agree with Ms. Boyle 100 percent. The way BGT treated Boyle, and really how a portion of the World handled her, says nothing good about our Western culture and everything bad about how we've "evolved" in the 21st Century.
The more I see it, we're diving headlong into "Revelations" in the Bible, with a Tribulation (a period of persecution and of people who believe in God) and the Second Coming the only way to get us out of this spritual mess. I'm serious. We have some terrible people in our midst. People who would take advantage of a woman with a disability - Boyle has a learning disability - for their own gain, then toss her aside when they're done with her, or create the climate to do so, as BGT did.
Let's recap. First, Boyle enters the BGT competition and when she appears on stage, is made fun of by the audience and the judges. A terrible scene. Then she opens her mouth to sing and the same tormentors cheer her on. BGT and American Idol judge Simon Cowell is wowed. His collegue Piers Morgan takes Boyle on a date. Suddenly, the 47-year old woman still greaving from the loss of her mother in 2007 has reason to smile. After years of loneliness and emotional pain calmed by singing, Boyle's loved around the World for her singing. Boyle said "I'm not lonely anymore," and even had people she never met before flying in to visit her home in Scotland from as far away as Peru. Wild.
But then the dark side emerges. It comes in the form of what we in America call "haters": people who hate to see anyone other than themselves achieve a high level of success. People calling her "matronly", "frumpy", and a "spinster". Fueled by the hypermedia world created by Web 2.0, haters have something negative to say about almost everyone it seems and where they don't have something bad to say, they'll create a reason to say it. Enter the journalists. Stalking Boyle. Camping out at her home all day and night. Taking pictures of her and harassing her. And all the time BGT just lets this happen to her. Hey, as long as she's generating ratings for them, I guess they just don't care.
Boyle's brother Gerry was right, Boyle should have quit BGT while she was on top two weeks after her grand introduction. BGT would have been forced to bring her back, if only to save its ratings, which certainly would have tanked had she left. But Boyle stuck it out, and strangely on the week before what was predicted to be her contest-winning final performance, Boyle gets treated in a horrible way never reported before (I still don't know exactly what those two men who harrassed her said to her) and she responds in the way anyone new to massive celebrity would do: she got hopping mad and called the cops. That set in motion the negative PR campaign against her, and caused her loss.
Sorry, I think BGT has to answer for this; there's already an investigation of how Boyle was treated, and reportedly British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called to see how Boyle was doing. Good. And if I'm "Diversity", the talented dance group that scored the upset win in Britain's Got Talent, I'd want an answer too. That's no way to win a competition, and they should know it.
All We Need Is Love
Watching Boyle go through this is painful for me. It's a reminder of how much evil exists around us and that we can never stop confronting it. In the end, the Beatles song was right on: All We Need Is Love. I love to see people succeed. I love to see people reach their dreams. Celebrities, to me, are to be celebrated just for being in the spotlight they've so wanted to have for so long. Great! Seeing people smile - the grin of a child or of a middle-aged woman who never thought her talent would see the light of day - not cry, should be everyone's objective. That it's not is the measure of our ability to do bad, not good. If this is you, whereever you are, stop and change. Please.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)