Obama has done nothing. Of course it has not yet been a year, but he has no accomplishments to point to except some arguments about how job loss would have been worse without his stimulus package (a package that included financial industry bailouts that began with the Bush administration).
The truth is, we don't know what Obama has accomplished. Or, rather, won't for some time. And simply judging from my own experience of life, I am actually assured by his apparent lack of progress. For now.
I've been blogging less and reading others' blogs less. The reason for this is simply that I've been diverting my writing energy into a bigger project. For now, it would seem obvious that I'm doing less. I'm not. But what I'm doing is higher risk. No one else may ever see it and it may amount to nothing.
I don't fool myself about my blog postings having any impact, but it is gratifying to hit the "publish post" button and have "done" something. I quite like that. The posts may have little or no consequence but my accomplishments seems obvious.
By contrast, the writing project I've been working on is far less likely to be published and even if it does, it is unlikely to have much more impact than my posts. I am doing something - more, even, then when I was at my peak of blogging. But there is little to report. I'm just working on the project. And will be for months - maybe a year. It doesn't sound very exciting but completing this project will be more exciting than anything I've done in the last decade or two. And it has the potential to have much more impact than the hundred-some posts I could publish in the same time. It will, in any event, be more consequential than a string of unrelated posts. For reasons like this, I believe that invisible progress is often the best progress.
So let's return to our president. He could do things to keep the 24-hour news channels happy, the equivalent of presidential blogging. Lots of little publicity opportunities, legislative initiatives and the like that generate news but probably won't change history.
Or he could take a big risk and put himself into a project like health care reform. He may not get legislation passed. Or it may be bad legislation. This is very high risk. But IF he succeeds, when history is written this will be an accomplishment as big as or bigger than that of any president in decades.
I have found that there is a negative correlation between how much I'm doing in any given week and what I can report at the end of the year. The projects that are worth talking about are few and take a long time. By contrast, if I "stay busy" I seem to inevitably wonder what it was I did later. Things that can be done quickly are generally disposable.
In a similar way, Obama's project is something that will look better at the end of his term than it does on any given news cycle. He's trying to do something big. To judge what he's done now is like a father grousing about how his son - in his second year at university - sure hasn't made as much money as the neighbor's kid who went right into landscaping. You've already given the man four years. Let him use it.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
06 December 2009
25 November 2009
10 September 2009
04 September 2009
Writing a Blog is Like Wearing a Pocket Protector
Apparently, writing a blog is like wearing a pocket protector: proof that one has not kept up in reading the memos that inform us about what has fallen out of fashion. A recent version of Harper's Index mentioned that 94% of all blogs have not been updated in the last 4 months.
Apparently most would-be bloggers need actual readers. That seems to me rather like deciding not to golf on weekends until a quiet but respectful crowd follows you from hole to hole.(And just for the record, that is why I don't golf. I tried it once and the adoring crowd failed to materialize.)
Those of you expecting some recognition for blogging should be sobered by this simple fact: even the spell checker at blogspot does not recognize the word "bloggers."
Apparently most would-be bloggers need actual readers. That seems to me rather like deciding not to golf on weekends until a quiet but respectful crowd follows you from hole to hole.(And just for the record, that is why I don't golf. I tried it once and the adoring crowd failed to materialize.)
Those of you expecting some recognition for blogging should be sobered by this simple fact: even the spell checker at blogspot does not recognize the word "bloggers."
01 February 2009
Obama Threatens Blogosphere
I blame Obama.
I have, of late, dropped off from my normal rate of postings at R World. One reason is just work: it has been intense during the last two weeks. But I also blame Obama.
When you see a man driving blindfolded or riding a horse seated backwards, it doesn't take much analysis before you can holler out advice. Bush was this man.
My issues with Obama, by contrast, are more subtle. They are not going to be as obvious to me. And given that what Obama is doing is more thoughtful, it takes more thought on my part to both consider what he's doing and what might work better.
This is going to make it hard on all bloggers, I imagine. The rate of postings might plummet throughout the blogosphere.
First Bush screws up the real world. Now Obama screws up the virtual world. The next president will have nothing left to go after save our imaginations.
I have, of late, dropped off from my normal rate of postings at R World. One reason is just work: it has been intense during the last two weeks. But I also blame Obama.
When you see a man driving blindfolded or riding a horse seated backwards, it doesn't take much analysis before you can holler out advice. Bush was this man.
My issues with Obama, by contrast, are more subtle. They are not going to be as obvious to me. And given that what Obama is doing is more thoughtful, it takes more thought on my part to both consider what he's doing and what might work better.
This is going to make it hard on all bloggers, I imagine. The rate of postings might plummet throughout the blogosphere.
First Bush screws up the real world. Now Obama screws up the virtual world. The next president will have nothing left to go after save our imaginations.
13 December 2008
Life Hiker Pops Out of the Virtual World of Blogging
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was notable because characters from one dimension burst through into another. The animated Roger Rabbit landed in our world, cartoon physics intact. Today, I had a similar experience. Sort of.
I got to meet Life Hiker today here in San Diego. We have been reading and commenting on each other's blogs for at least a year now, and when I heard his voice on my answering machine yesterday, I had to chuckle. It was so cool to have him break through the virtual barrier into my real world. (He has, apparently, been there in his real world all along.)
One biggest problem with Life Hiker (who actually has a name) is that I find so little to disagree with in his comments and posts. We've come at some of the same positions from different directions, but I've learned this about the blogosphere: it has created a new kind of neighbor. LH may live across the country in New York, but he's pretty much a next door neighbor when it comes to ideology and worldview. And getting to sit down with him and his son at Con Pane - one of my favorite San Diego bakeries - felt natural.
My wife Sandi came towards the end of our meeting. (He looked more delighted to see her than me, but she is, to be fair, more delightful to look at.) She told him that he was so "real," had such obvious integrity. And he is and he does. I love ideas and would be content not to bother acting on 98% of my ideas. By contrast, LH regularly volunteers, travels abroad to follow his convictions about how to help people, and basically lines up his beliefs and actions in ways that are every kind of admirable. It was great to "meet" this man I know so well.
22 September 2008
There is No Excuse for This Sort of Post, Really
Miley Cyrus may abandon her stage name of Hannah Montana. Just so everyone is clear, I have first dibs on it when she does. I’ve talked to the marketing director at R World and he assures me that posting as Hannah Montana would drive more traffic to the blog.
Having tired of TV, radio, recorded music and other home entertainment options, Bernard has begun to hold open-mic evenings three nights a week at his home. He tells me that the talent is pretty hit and miss, but he’s meeting lots of interesting people.
Today at Home Depot, I was excited to see that they had a Blog Materials section. It was, alas, a visuo (the visual equivalent of a typo): the section was actually labeled Bldg. Materials.
Hallmark has begun to sell same-sex wedding cards. To me it seems obvious that sexual orientation is not chosen. If it were, all men would choose to be in relationships with women and, I’m sure, so would all women. If it were not for genetic compulsion really, who would choose to be in a relationship with a man?
Judeo-Christian is a term often confused with Judo Christian, the ancient martial art of compulsory proselytizing.
The graffiti read, “For a good time, call 619-555-xxxx,” so Jerome called. After he said “Hello, I’m calling for a good time,” this small voice said, “7 PM is usually a pretty good time.” Jerome did not call back.
Having tired of TV, radio, recorded music and other home entertainment options, Bernard has begun to hold open-mic evenings three nights a week at his home. He tells me that the talent is pretty hit and miss, but he’s meeting lots of interesting people.
Today at Home Depot, I was excited to see that they had a Blog Materials section. It was, alas, a visuo (the visual equivalent of a typo): the section was actually labeled Bldg. Materials.
Hallmark has begun to sell same-sex wedding cards. To me it seems obvious that sexual orientation is not chosen. If it were, all men would choose to be in relationships with women and, I’m sure, so would all women. If it were not for genetic compulsion really, who would choose to be in a relationship with a man?
Judeo-Christian is a term often confused with Judo Christian, the ancient martial art of compulsory proselytizing.
The graffiti read, “For a good time, call 619-555-xxxx,” so Jerome called. After he said “Hello, I’m calling for a good time,” this small voice said, “7 PM is usually a pretty good time.” Jerome did not call back.
25 June 2008
7 Words You Can Never Write in a Blog
"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
Sigmund Freud
George Carlin is gone. One of the saddest things about this is that our grandkids will never quite understand what he did. We now live in a post-Carlin world where FCC regulations against thought and expression are largely irrelevant rather than central to how people can express outrage or whimsy. In fact, the very notion of words that you can never write in a blog seems absurd. It seems to me, the words that can never be written in a blog are quite different from the ones that you could never say on radio. They might include the following.
"My editor." We do this without assistance, in ways that might well make our high school English teachers cringe. We have no one to blame for or rely on for awkward language or poorly chosen words. And we cannot write, “my editor” on our blogs.
"My blog advance." All of the money I earn is being deposited to a secret Swiss Bank account. The problem is, the account particulars are also kept secret from me. There is money in the Internet – lots of money. Most of us simply don’t know where it is kept.
"Our sponsor." As in, "we'll be right back after a few words from our sponsor." We don't take commercial breaks in the blogosphere. (But we do take breaks. The bloggers' union may not have done much on wage or benefits negotiations but they have done a wonderful job of ensuring job security and flex time.)
At least in the blogosphere, we really are moving towards a world in which "adult" content is as likely to refer to conversations and topics that would bore a child as it is to the words and images that the FCC could once shield us from. It is a world in which each person gets to be his own censor. It is a world in which George Carlin's early humor now makes little sense.
And maybe that’s a measure of a social reformer’s impact: if they’ve made their outrage meaningless to the next generation, their work is done. Thank you George and farewell.
Sigmund Freud
George Carlin is gone. One of the saddest things about this is that our grandkids will never quite understand what he did. We now live in a post-Carlin world where FCC regulations against thought and expression are largely irrelevant rather than central to how people can express outrage or whimsy. In fact, the very notion of words that you can never write in a blog seems absurd. It seems to me, the words that can never be written in a blog are quite different from the ones that you could never say on radio. They might include the following.
"My editor." We do this without assistance, in ways that might well make our high school English teachers cringe. We have no one to blame for or rely on for awkward language or poorly chosen words. And we cannot write, “my editor” on our blogs.
"My blog advance." All of the money I earn is being deposited to a secret Swiss Bank account. The problem is, the account particulars are also kept secret from me. There is money in the Internet – lots of money. Most of us simply don’t know where it is kept.
"Our sponsor." As in, "we'll be right back after a few words from our sponsor." We don't take commercial breaks in the blogosphere. (But we do take breaks. The bloggers' union may not have done much on wage or benefits negotiations but they have done a wonderful job of ensuring job security and flex time.)
At least in the blogosphere, we really are moving towards a world in which "adult" content is as likely to refer to conversations and topics that would bore a child as it is to the words and images that the FCC could once shield us from. It is a world in which each person gets to be his own censor. It is a world in which George Carlin's early humor now makes little sense.
And maybe that’s a measure of a social reformer’s impact: if they’ve made their outrage meaningless to the next generation, their work is done. Thank you George and farewell.
23 March 2008
04 January 2008
Why We Blog
Our lives begin to end the day we stay silent about the things we care about.
- Martin Luther King
- Martin Luther King
20 March 2007
Orwellian Blogging
This from Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language," May, 1945.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
--------------------
This may well be the mission of blogging: cut past the obscurity of language and media to reality as we live it.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
--------------------
This may well be the mission of blogging: cut past the obscurity of language and media to reality as we live it.
16 March 2007
Will Blogging Just Increase the Popularity of Mainstream Journalists?
In a stunning reversal from his rant just days earlier about the mainstream media's mad dash for irrelevancy, our intrepid blogger has this thought ....
Bloggers are to mainstream columnists what streetball is to the NBA. As much as I enjoy the work of fellow bloggers, I've yet to find someone who nails an issue with the succinct authority of a Paul Krugman or the comedic wit of a Jon Stewart or the research acumen of a Dana Priest or Sy Hersh.
Guys who like to play a game of pickup basketball follow the NBA more closely than those who don't. Recreational golfers are more likely to watch PGA on TV than us normal people. Engagement in a game is more likely to make one a student and fan of that game.
Little League and College Teams create far more fans of professional athletes than actual professional athletes. Might it be that blogging will not create competition for mainstream journalists but will, instead, create a new, bigger audience even more appreciative of their skills?
And wouldn't that be ironic? As the peasants are transformed into the middle class, the rich just get richer. I think we've seen this play before.
Bloggers are to mainstream columnists what streetball is to the NBA. As much as I enjoy the work of fellow bloggers, I've yet to find someone who nails an issue with the succinct authority of a Paul Krugman or the comedic wit of a Jon Stewart or the research acumen of a Dana Priest or Sy Hersh.
Guys who like to play a game of pickup basketball follow the NBA more closely than those who don't. Recreational golfers are more likely to watch PGA on TV than us normal people. Engagement in a game is more likely to make one a student and fan of that game.
Little League and College Teams create far more fans of professional athletes than actual professional athletes. Might it be that blogging will not create competition for mainstream journalists but will, instead, create a new, bigger audience even more appreciative of their skills?
And wouldn't that be ironic? As the peasants are transformed into the middle class, the rich just get richer. I think we've seen this play before.
Blog Karaoke
If plagiarism is equivalent to lip-synching, than using your blog to continually showcase words and videos generated by others is the equivalent of blogging karaoke.
05 March 2007
The Pay for Blogging
... is about the same as the pay for making crank phone calls.
Some folks are seriously looking to make money with blogs, using ads and such. Talk about deluded. Everyone knows that the reason to blog is to change the world. The point is not to become the next Bill Gates - the point is to become the next Thomas Jefferson. ("All bloggers create accounts that are equal ...") Well, there's that and the, uh, groupies. Most non-bloggers don't realize that we bloggers have more groupies than The Rolling Stones had in their prime. Sometimes I can barely step away from my laptop for a cup of tea, so dense is the crowd of screaming fans.
Seriously, though, the motivation for blogging for most of us is intrinsic. What is the motivation to eat a great meal or to have sex or stroll on the beach or to play a game? Some things provide their own motivation.
I think that the motivation for blogging has two components - those of us who do it are intrinsically motivated to write and to converse (through writing). If we only wanted to write, we'd have private journals. If we only wanted to converse, we'd meet friends at a coffee shop or the park. Given we want to do both, we blog. Blogging is more like having some folks over for dinner than renting a convention center and standing before a microphone. Not only are we unlikely to change the world - we're unlikely to change the minds of most of our readers. Yet we continue to type because for us it is more fun than bowling.
I suspect that about 98.9% of the folks who are motivated to blog with dreams of fame and fortune will have joined Amway or found some new hobby before the start of 2008. I wish them luck and hope that in the midst of finding some way to pay the rent they find activities that engage them even when there is no extrinsic motivation.
Some folks are seriously looking to make money with blogs, using ads and such. Talk about deluded. Everyone knows that the reason to blog is to change the world. The point is not to become the next Bill Gates - the point is to become the next Thomas Jefferson. ("All bloggers create accounts that are equal ...") Well, there's that and the, uh, groupies. Most non-bloggers don't realize that we bloggers have more groupies than The Rolling Stones had in their prime. Sometimes I can barely step away from my laptop for a cup of tea, so dense is the crowd of screaming fans.
Seriously, though, the motivation for blogging for most of us is intrinsic. What is the motivation to eat a great meal or to have sex or stroll on the beach or to play a game? Some things provide their own motivation.
I think that the motivation for blogging has two components - those of us who do it are intrinsically motivated to write and to converse (through writing). If we only wanted to write, we'd have private journals. If we only wanted to converse, we'd meet friends at a coffee shop or the park. Given we want to do both, we blog. Blogging is more like having some folks over for dinner than renting a convention center and standing before a microphone. Not only are we unlikely to change the world - we're unlikely to change the minds of most of our readers. Yet we continue to type because for us it is more fun than bowling.
I suspect that about 98.9% of the folks who are motivated to blog with dreams of fame and fortune will have joined Amway or found some new hobby before the start of 2008. I wish them luck and hope that in the midst of finding some way to pay the rent they find activities that engage them even when there is no extrinsic motivation.
27 February 2007
Will the Internet Kill the Newspaper?
Newspapers are losing sales because they have missed a very important shift. Once upon a time, communities shared a worldview and the newspaper reported on commuinty events. The events were the important thing – the story mattered most. Today, we have a fragmentation of worldviews within every geographical community. Within an area like San Diego we have Low Riders and Bio-tech executives, Beatniks and Rednecks, Lawyers and Retail Store Clerks. They may all live in the same "community" but they all have their own worldview. These shared worldviews shape interests more than shared events. The Internet has allowed the emergence of a geography of ideology, a clustering of worldviews. This is proving more attractive to readers than the old geographical clustering of stories and events.
Frontline is airing a report beginning tonight about the news wars – the threat to local newspapers. The problem, according to Lowell Bergman, is that most of the actual reporting is done by local newspapers and the business model that subsidized their investigations is eroding.
Newspapers have been predicated on the notion that there is a truth that can be reported. A problem like illegal immigration, the occupation of Iraq, or climate change is a story to the local newspaper.
For bloggers, by contrast, these kinds of topics are not stories but worldviews. For the blogosphere, a worldview is a shared set of values, a way of making sense of the world. The difference between a story and a worldview is, in my mind, the difference between the old media and the new. Climate change is not a story - it is a way of judging stories.
The technology of the web has allowed a bigger truth to emerge: without a context or worldview, stories are fairly inert, boring, and of little relevance. Shared context is what now forms audiences and market segments - not shared geography. The Internet is a better tool for this than the newspaper.
Newspapers assume that stories matter most. The blogosphere assumes that worldviews matter most.
If you are convinced that the Industrial Revolution is now threatening your habitat, you don't look at climate change as a story. For you it is an important part of your worldview - a paradigm through which you make sense of everything from corporate malfeasance to political corruption to worsening health, the increases in levels of asthma and cancer.
If you are convinced that Western Civilization is being attacked from without and within, you don't see stories of Hollywood's depiction of casual sex or the influx of illegal immigrants or the existence of terrorist training camps as mere stories. These events inform your worldview and determine what kinds of policies, politicians, and initiatives are needed. For those with strong ideologies, the reporting on a story – what is ignored or “blown out of proportion” – is the story.
Such worldviews immediately suggest a political activism in response to events - not nuanced and balanced news accounts. That a news outlet would remain neutral about an invasion of illegal immigrants into our neighborhoods or American troops into the Middle East is something that offends rather than comforts readers of different worldviews. They don’t want calm reporting – they want their outrage validated and echoed in their news sources. Broadcasters like Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart get this – newspapers, for the most part, still don’t and because of this they are steadily losing readers.
The world of objective news is simply passe. it is being replaced by news with an objective. There is too much information for us to collect even more stories and statistics that are not going to be translated into action. Information that fails to stimulate a change in actions is entertainment and if we want entertainment we can turn to Steven Colbert or Rush Limbaugh.
Frontline is airing a report beginning tonight about the news wars – the threat to local newspapers. The problem, according to Lowell Bergman, is that most of the actual reporting is done by local newspapers and the business model that subsidized their investigations is eroding.
Newspapers have been predicated on the notion that there is a truth that can be reported. A problem like illegal immigration, the occupation of Iraq, or climate change is a story to the local newspaper.
For bloggers, by contrast, these kinds of topics are not stories but worldviews. For the blogosphere, a worldview is a shared set of values, a way of making sense of the world. The difference between a story and a worldview is, in my mind, the difference between the old media and the new. Climate change is not a story - it is a way of judging stories.
The technology of the web has allowed a bigger truth to emerge: without a context or worldview, stories are fairly inert, boring, and of little relevance. Shared context is what now forms audiences and market segments - not shared geography. The Internet is a better tool for this than the newspaper.
Newspapers assume that stories matter most. The blogosphere assumes that worldviews matter most.
If you are convinced that the Industrial Revolution is now threatening your habitat, you don't look at climate change as a story. For you it is an important part of your worldview - a paradigm through which you make sense of everything from corporate malfeasance to political corruption to worsening health, the increases in levels of asthma and cancer.
If you are convinced that Western Civilization is being attacked from without and within, you don't see stories of Hollywood's depiction of casual sex or the influx of illegal immigrants or the existence of terrorist training camps as mere stories. These events inform your worldview and determine what kinds of policies, politicians, and initiatives are needed. For those with strong ideologies, the reporting on a story – what is ignored or “blown out of proportion” – is the story.
Such worldviews immediately suggest a political activism in response to events - not nuanced and balanced news accounts. That a news outlet would remain neutral about an invasion of illegal immigrants into our neighborhoods or American troops into the Middle East is something that offends rather than comforts readers of different worldviews. They don’t want calm reporting – they want their outrage validated and echoed in their news sources. Broadcasters like Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart get this – newspapers, for the most part, still don’t and because of this they are steadily losing readers.
The world of objective news is simply passe. it is being replaced by news with an objective. There is too much information for us to collect even more stories and statistics that are not going to be translated into action. Information that fails to stimulate a change in actions is entertainment and if we want entertainment we can turn to Steven Colbert or Rush Limbaugh.
12 February 2007
How Blogs and YouTube Will Transform the 2008 Campaign
We're going to see the most fascinating video during this presidential campaign. It could be a video of a candidate awkwardly dancing at teen prom, shoplifting at a convenience store, or calling someone a racial slur (Macca comes to mind). The point is, in this age of YouTube the flaws of candidates are no longer abstractions. Video changes the facts. It is one thing to know that someone crapped in the woods and quite another to actually see video footage of it. As a fact it is a footnote of little importance - as a video this fact becomes disgusting.
The Republicans who hated the hair dresser's son understood this. It was not enough to accuse Clinton of having sex with an intern; the Star report released details vivid enough to script a video in the apparent hope that this government sanctioned porn might turn the public against him. As it turned out, the public became weary of this and the detailed description that might have initially seemed so damning eventually became irrelevant to most Americans who became frustrated with the Republicans' obsession with Bill's libido and wanted to move on.
In the Clinton scandal we may see a ray of hope. I remember asking my (then) ten year-old daughter if she thought that Clinton was a role model at the height of the Lewinsky scandal. She wrinkled her nose and said, "No." I told her that he might just be a role model in this regard: in spite of some obvious flaws he was trying to move the world in what he thought was a positive direction. In general, the American people seemed to agree. Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating - a point higher than Ronald Reagan and more than double Bush's current approval rating. Ultimately, the American people judged the man's perceived policy and performance rather than his flaws.
Some candidacies have been destroyed by a single revelation. Gary Hart's romantic indiscretion and Wilbur Mills’ affection for the stripper Fanne Foxe are among the more colorful incidents of self destruction.
But in this age of YouTube and blogs, it is hard to imagine any flaws remaining hidden for the duration of a two-year campaign. What seems probable is that we'll have dirt on all the candidates by the time we're supposed to vote. And at that point, it'll be difficult to choose between the guy who helped to finance the razing of a section of rain forest and the guy who cussed out a poor, immigrant bell hop and the gal whose phone sex session was captured on tape. Because we'll have documents on all of this. And as John Edwards’s recent problem with the two bloggers who had the nerve to insult the Catholic Church has proven, even the indiscretions of campaign staff can wound a candidate.
What will happen when everyone is, so to speak, sitting in the sauna sans robe or towel? I think it could be wonderfully liberating. Suddenly forced to confront the fact that even Super Models have flaws they rely on photographers and photo editors to gloss over, voters will have to give up on their odd notion of finding a flawless candidate.
Rumors of Lincoln's bouts of depression and Jefferson's half-black child would have been enough to scuttle their campaigns in this modern era. We wonder why our leaders today don't have the stature of leaders past. Perhaps we've dismissed them on criteria that history has proven to be largely irrelevant to the task of leading a great nation.
If the Internet forces us to confront the fact that we have only flawed candidates from which to choose, perhaps it'll get us to focus more on evaluating policy and purpose. And this could be the best thing to happen to politics since they gave women the right to vote. After all, these aren't saviors we're trying to elect - just politicians.
Post Script: and as if on cue, Giuliani has announced his candidacy and Youtube has provided just such a video. (With commentary about it by one of my favorite Americans here.)
The Republicans who hated the hair dresser's son understood this. It was not enough to accuse Clinton of having sex with an intern; the Star report released details vivid enough to script a video in the apparent hope that this government sanctioned porn might turn the public against him. As it turned out, the public became weary of this and the detailed description that might have initially seemed so damning eventually became irrelevant to most Americans who became frustrated with the Republicans' obsession with Bill's libido and wanted to move on.
In the Clinton scandal we may see a ray of hope. I remember asking my (then) ten year-old daughter if she thought that Clinton was a role model at the height of the Lewinsky scandal. She wrinkled her nose and said, "No." I told her that he might just be a role model in this regard: in spite of some obvious flaws he was trying to move the world in what he thought was a positive direction. In general, the American people seemed to agree. Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating - a point higher than Ronald Reagan and more than double Bush's current approval rating. Ultimately, the American people judged the man's perceived policy and performance rather than his flaws.
Some candidacies have been destroyed by a single revelation. Gary Hart's romantic indiscretion and Wilbur Mills’ affection for the stripper Fanne Foxe are among the more colorful incidents of self destruction.
But in this age of YouTube and blogs, it is hard to imagine any flaws remaining hidden for the duration of a two-year campaign. What seems probable is that we'll have dirt on all the candidates by the time we're supposed to vote. And at that point, it'll be difficult to choose between the guy who helped to finance the razing of a section of rain forest and the guy who cussed out a poor, immigrant bell hop and the gal whose phone sex session was captured on tape. Because we'll have documents on all of this. And as John Edwards’s recent problem with the two bloggers who had the nerve to insult the Catholic Church has proven, even the indiscretions of campaign staff can wound a candidate.
What will happen when everyone is, so to speak, sitting in the sauna sans robe or towel? I think it could be wonderfully liberating. Suddenly forced to confront the fact that even Super Models have flaws they rely on photographers and photo editors to gloss over, voters will have to give up on their odd notion of finding a flawless candidate.
Rumors of Lincoln's bouts of depression and Jefferson's half-black child would have been enough to scuttle their campaigns in this modern era. We wonder why our leaders today don't have the stature of leaders past. Perhaps we've dismissed them on criteria that history has proven to be largely irrelevant to the task of leading a great nation.
If the Internet forces us to confront the fact that we have only flawed candidates from which to choose, perhaps it'll get us to focus more on evaluating policy and purpose. And this could be the best thing to happen to politics since they gave women the right to vote. After all, these aren't saviors we're trying to elect - just politicians.
Post Script: and as if on cue, Giuliani has announced his candidacy and Youtube has provided just such a video. (With commentary about it by one of my favorite Americans here.)
19 January 2007
Leadership, Possibility and Us Critics
Life is full of possibilities, most which we don’t even consider.
It's Friday and tonight you could read a book and enjoy it thoroughly. You could read a book but if you do you'll miss out on hitting the clubs with your friends, attending a play, watching a live concert, rock wall climbing, dining at the new tapas restaurant you've been curious about, jogging in preparation for a half-marathon scheduled for this summer, trying out that new curried chicken recipe that looked so good, starting to write your own book, mustering up the courage to contact the Toastmaster's group, begin a weight-lifting program, drive out to Las Vegas for the weekend, wander around the mall with your friend, experiment with meditation, buy a DNA kit and send in a sample for analysis and family history, make sandwiches for 20 homeless people, volunteer at a youth club, visit a .... You get the idea. For every one thing you consciously choose to do you are consciously or unconsciously choosing not to do about a million other things.
Powerful leaders have the ability to tune us in to possibilities that we had not previously, or seriously, considered.
"By the end of this decade, we will put a man on the moon and return him safely," JFK said. We are going to make a personal computer that the average person will want to use. We will make our downtown areas so safe and so stimulating that families will feel delighted to have their children go downtown at any time. We will transform people's idea of fast food into meals that make people feel more vibrant, more alive, to feel healthy.
A leader works like a radio receiver, able to pull signals out of the air, signals that the rest of us perceive only as static, and broadcast that possibility as something compelling, into a tune we can dance to. After a leader speaks, static turns into a tune we hum.
So what is our job here in the blogosphere? It is to point out to the humming masses that there are alternatives to the tune they are humming. Opportunity costs suggests that we don't just judge the book you're reading but actually consider what else you could be doing. A social critic notes that we're about to spend $1.2 trillion on the occupation of Iraq and asks what else one could buy with that sum.
Your mission, should you accept it, is to sing songs of possibility that are so compelling that leaders and the humming masses have little choice but to tune in. It's hard work, but what else were you going to do with your blog?
It's Friday and tonight you could read a book and enjoy it thoroughly. You could read a book but if you do you'll miss out on hitting the clubs with your friends, attending a play, watching a live concert, rock wall climbing, dining at the new tapas restaurant you've been curious about, jogging in preparation for a half-marathon scheduled for this summer, trying out that new curried chicken recipe that looked so good, starting to write your own book, mustering up the courage to contact the Toastmaster's group, begin a weight-lifting program, drive out to Las Vegas for the weekend, wander around the mall with your friend, experiment with meditation, buy a DNA kit and send in a sample for analysis and family history, make sandwiches for 20 homeless people, volunteer at a youth club, visit a .... You get the idea. For every one thing you consciously choose to do you are consciously or unconsciously choosing not to do about a million other things.
Powerful leaders have the ability to tune us in to possibilities that we had not previously, or seriously, considered.
"By the end of this decade, we will put a man on the moon and return him safely," JFK said. We are going to make a personal computer that the average person will want to use. We will make our downtown areas so safe and so stimulating that families will feel delighted to have their children go downtown at any time. We will transform people's idea of fast food into meals that make people feel more vibrant, more alive, to feel healthy.
A leader works like a radio receiver, able to pull signals out of the air, signals that the rest of us perceive only as static, and broadcast that possibility as something compelling, into a tune we can dance to. After a leader speaks, static turns into a tune we hum.
So what is our job here in the blogosphere? It is to point out to the humming masses that there are alternatives to the tune they are humming. Opportunity costs suggests that we don't just judge the book you're reading but actually consider what else you could be doing. A social critic notes that we're about to spend $1.2 trillion on the occupation of Iraq and asks what else one could buy with that sum.
Your mission, should you accept it, is to sing songs of possibility that are so compelling that leaders and the humming masses have little choice but to tune in. It's hard work, but what else were you going to do with your blog?
17 January 2007
If Hemingway Wrote a Blog
Bush spoke nonsense as he looked on, feeling oddly detached from what George was saying. “Is this what it means to be un-American?” he quietly wondered. Because of the nonsense George spoke, real people died. Now, to protect himself from a guilty conscience George chooses to continue believing nonsense. I have had my fill of nonsense, he thought. I am ready for something of substance, something that does not leave the taste of fear in my mouth.
The country is divided. Some care and some do not. Many are past anger and have, in disgust, begun to write. Their words change google search results and technorati ratings but do not change policy. This too divides them. Some are distracted by the stats and rankings. Some are made angry anew. Odd that economic abundance should ultimately produce so much anger, he thought. Very odd.
Blogging is a verb that makes it sound as if the writer’s soul is dribbling down his pant leg, to form a pool on the floor between the computer and the dog. Blog. That does not sound like a tool for social change. Blog. It sits in his mouth uneasily, like a drink from a foreign country. How could so many expect so much of such an oddly constructed word? Such a vague concept? What is the point of a public diary, he wondered. Is it simply a capitulation to the collusion of technology and government to rob us of our privacy? Bloggers become distracted by stats and rankings and adsense revenues. Adsense. Rhymes with nonsense. Adsense. Nonsense. It is no wonder that souls were so quick to flee the body in this time. The steady diet of fear, anger, and greed makes souls shrink so much that they could be lost in a single cough, like a particle dislodged from the back of the throat.
Bush spoke nonsense but then again, it was one of those days when everything sounded nonsensical. Humanity faces an unknown world, strangely convinced that words can change it. They desperately cling to the notion that their talk and typing can actually improve this world. It is a naïve and childish notion, one he finds oddly endearing. As he thought about this he gradually slumped forward. Later, much later, his wife found him lying face down on his computer keyboard, the screen filled with ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for pages.
The country is divided. Some care and some do not. Many are past anger and have, in disgust, begun to write. Their words change google search results and technorati ratings but do not change policy. This too divides them. Some are distracted by the stats and rankings. Some are made angry anew. Odd that economic abundance should ultimately produce so much anger, he thought. Very odd.
Blogging is a verb that makes it sound as if the writer’s soul is dribbling down his pant leg, to form a pool on the floor between the computer and the dog. Blog. That does not sound like a tool for social change. Blog. It sits in his mouth uneasily, like a drink from a foreign country. How could so many expect so much of such an oddly constructed word? Such a vague concept? What is the point of a public diary, he wondered. Is it simply a capitulation to the collusion of technology and government to rob us of our privacy? Bloggers become distracted by stats and rankings and adsense revenues. Adsense. Rhymes with nonsense. Adsense. Nonsense. It is no wonder that souls were so quick to flee the body in this time. The steady diet of fear, anger, and greed makes souls shrink so much that they could be lost in a single cough, like a particle dislodged from the back of the throat.
Bush spoke nonsense but then again, it was one of those days when everything sounded nonsensical. Humanity faces an unknown world, strangely convinced that words can change it. They desperately cling to the notion that their talk and typing can actually improve this world. It is a naïve and childish notion, one he finds oddly endearing. As he thought about this he gradually slumped forward. Later, much later, his wife found him lying face down on his computer keyboard, the screen filled with ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for pages.
12 January 2007
Blogging and Global Consciousness
"It is the ‘turning inward’ aspect of the self — its recursiveness — that gives it its peculiar paradoxical quality.”
UC San Diego professor V.S. Ramachandran on the "Neurology of Self-Awareness"
Some claim that through the Internet we have created a new kind of consciousness, a global self. They must be right. As I stroll through the blogosphere I find so many blogs about blogging. The catalyst may have once been to engage in a dialogue, to change the world, but the continual and seemingly inevitable distraction, towards which so many bloggers eventually flock like moths to a light, are rankings, stats, and market share. So busy looking for how to get readers they forget why they wanted them in the first place.
Blogging has become an act of chronicling blogging - a recursive act that seems certain to implode.
UC San Diego professor V.S. Ramachandran on the "Neurology of Self-Awareness"
Some claim that through the Internet we have created a new kind of consciousness, a global self. They must be right. As I stroll through the blogosphere I find so many blogs about blogging. The catalyst may have once been to engage in a dialogue, to change the world, but the continual and seemingly inevitable distraction, towards which so many bloggers eventually flock like moths to a light, are rankings, stats, and market share. So busy looking for how to get readers they forget why they wanted them in the first place.
Blogging has become an act of chronicling blogging - a recursive act that seems certain to implode.
11 January 2007
The "Truth" Shattered by Blogs
"There are facts and there are opinions. Our news offers up facts."
This odd little myth is one perpetuated by news organizations for decades. It was an odd supposition, resting as it did on a refusal to acknowledge how important context and culture were to even the choice of topics covered. A person living in Topeka, Kansas will not only be interested in different stories than a person living in London, much less Jakarta, but will come to the topic with different referents, comparisons, and values.
There are obviously "facts" that can be reported but the story doesn't start until one overlays meaning onto those facts. Investigative reporter Douglas Foster once said, "The only objective journalism is journalism with an objective."
The blogs have shattered the notion that there is a "truth" that is reported more or less effectively by the media. Rather, there are various goals that groups have - goals as diverse as a return to the 1950's to subordinating everything to the principle of continuous disruption in technology and business. Those various goals result in very different ideas about what constitutes a story and how to tell that story. Even more, those goals turn facts into stories.
This odd little myth is one perpetuated by news organizations for decades. It was an odd supposition, resting as it did on a refusal to acknowledge how important context and culture were to even the choice of topics covered. A person living in Topeka, Kansas will not only be interested in different stories than a person living in London, much less Jakarta, but will come to the topic with different referents, comparisons, and values.
There are obviously "facts" that can be reported but the story doesn't start until one overlays meaning onto those facts. Investigative reporter Douglas Foster once said, "The only objective journalism is journalism with an objective."
The blogs have shattered the notion that there is a "truth" that is reported more or less effectively by the media. Rather, there are various goals that groups have - goals as diverse as a return to the 1950's to subordinating everything to the principle of continuous disruption in technology and business. Those various goals result in very different ideas about what constitutes a story and how to tell that story. Even more, those goals turn facts into stories.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)