Auld Lang Impeachment

I thought I'd help everyone celebrate New Year's Eve with my Auld Lang Impeachment. Here's how it begins:

Auld Lang Impeachment -- Song Parody (Sing to Auld Lang Syne)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

"Bush/Cheney's wrongs won't be forgot.
Each one we'll keep in mind.
These evil men must be locked up
For all their many crimes.

They spied on U.S. citizens.
They lied us into war..."

You can read the rest of Auld Lang Impeachment here, and you can hear me sing it here.

Happy new year!

Beautiful women are in the streets not in magazines!

Link to an interactive movie about the amount of retouching on a photo.

Way to make women who read it feel good about themselves!
Nothing new, we all know that all pictures are retouched, but I thought it was only about reducing celullite and natural skin folds (which is already too much since all of these are natural and need to be accepted!), but now, it goes beyond that, to the point where the perfectly lovely girl in the picture in this example becomes a sad B porno star...

Sometimes I feel like this society not only tries to make its people dumb so we don't ask questions, but even more so women!

Bill O'Reilly's Faux War On Christmas -- Song Parody

My latest song parody "celebrates" Bill O'Reilly's faux war on Christmas. Here's how it starts:

Bill O'Reilly's Faux War On Christmas -- Song Parody (Sing to "Get Me To The Church On Time" from "My Fair Lady")

"Bill says we're waging war on Christmas,
Spouting another Fox News lie.
Bill's rarely proper.
Loves telling whoppers.
Ain't nothing that his fans won't buy.

Bill claims we're screwing blessed Christmas.
We're greeting people wrong, he cries.
Not saying merry,
Christmas is very,
Belligerent and most unwise..."

The rest of my Bill O'Reilly's Faux War On Christmas is here and my audio / podcast version is here.

"Jewcy"

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

Greetings, Blog Sisters, from the Nerd's Eye View foreign office in the middle of the snowy Austrian Alps. Somehow I got picked up in the great TypePad outage of 2005. Though I'm a recent migrant to self hosting on WordPress myself, I must not walk away from the opportunity to post to a whole bunch of strangers. And to express my gratitude for inclusion!

In thanks I give you this frivolous little post:

---

"In an age when Madonna demands to be called 'Esther,' Jon Stewart is a sex symbol and seemingly everyone speaks a little Yiddish, it's never been hipper to be a Jew." - NYT

This is all fine and well and actually, a little funny, but unlikely to have even the slightest impact on my own "surviving Christmas" strategies. Adam Sandler might have written the Channukah Song from a home like the set of that movie, what the hell was it called, the one with the hot maid, but you've got NO idea what it's like to be "the only kid on the block without a Christmas tree" until you've spent your Channukah in a small town in Austria.

Don't mistake this for complaining. I'm not, really. Spending Christmas in a small town in Austria means you're fairly sheltered from the economic frenzy of the holiday. It's mildly ironic to find that you'd rather spend your Christmas season in a predominantly Catholic nation than in the American melting pot. Why? Because here you get your Christmas with a mighty big helping of Jesus and not so big a side order of rampant commercialism. You don't feel like your insignificant little Channukah has to compete with the sparkle and acquisition of Yankee Christmas. I'm for that.

Back in Manhattan and LA, the tribe might be camping it up, big time, with a fancy menorah hat, but here in the snowglobe, I'll just be fielding well meant inquiries about the holiday at hand. That and swanning about the kitchen in the dreidl apron that a kind Jewish friend pressed upon me shortly before I hopped a plane to the continent.

"If you live in Wichita, the new hip Jewish movement will never reach you."

For example. And no kidding.

Typepad's Loss is OUR GAIN!

Typepad nomads, WELCOME!!! I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear about your recent blogging frustrations, and being a long-time Blogger/blogspot user, I can relate to frustration over downs-and-outages, HOWEVER, on the bright side, I'm sure everything will be okay eventually.

Now in the mean time, please please please get yourself a mug, pour some coffee, kick your shoes off, and make yourselves at home over here. In fact, even once your own homes are back in shape, don't be a stranger--come on over and post with us on the oldest women's team blog on the net. ;-)

It's great to have you.

Sisters let's make the Typepaders feel at home!

...

With a tip of the cowgirl hat and a grim jaw

Howdy! Badgerbag here. Darn you to heck, Typepad!

Last night I went down to the party at the Center for Sex and Culture. It's a very cozy place, and I thought it woud be a nice way to connect with people before the Good Vibrations holiday party across the street.

The short version: their art exhibit was by a photographer who, many years ago, took photos of me and during the shoot, started jacking off. I told him to quit it... he stopped... I explained why it wasn't okay... but then he freaked out and started begging me never to tell anyone. Stuff like "I feel so bad... I just couldn't help myself... Please don't tell or my whole standing in the community will be ruined... My wife is upstairs and she would kill me..." Needless to say - I did not "never tell" and in fact told lots of people in the queer sex-positive community. Response was muted. The idea seemed to be that I should not make a fuss.

So anyway I went up to the dude, Michael Rosen, at his own art show and explained to him in public what he did and why it was wrong! And told him not to lie - and not to involve other people in his lies. If you want the long version, it's here. I told the wanking photographer what I wanted to talk about and said this was his opportunity to have a conversation about that incident. He acted like he didn't have a clue what I was talking about, and I yelled at him a bit and walked away. I was very angry.

I made an ass of myself, but at the same time I was glad to stand up for a minute and deny this jerk the ability to get away with his secret jerking. I heard that he was still doing it in his photo shoots - always with women alone and never with the famous ones. You'd think it would be easy to simply walk up to a guy, tell him to go to hell, and walk away. But it was way more difficult and scary than I thought it would be. I wanted not just to yell at him, but to give him the opportunity to respond, explain, and apologize. Writing about it in this public way will likely call down a world of hell on his ass -- also possibly on mine -- and yet it also is an opportunity for him to learn something. You don't get to respond to gossip and rumors directly. But he can respond to this all he wants. I am open to having a conversation about it. Whatever conversation happens, I want it in public.

Today I realized the humor in the situation. At the party. I was wearing leather pants, a fishnet shirt, and an insane purple cowgirl hat. In fact I think as I was walking away, I put on my hat and jammed it down low over my eyes while I was grinding my teeth with my chin in the air. I might as well have puffed the smoke and powder off the barrel of my pistol and leaped out of the window onto my waiting horse! Too bad I wasn't in chaps! Stomping, with my spurs a-jingle! Anyway, it was peculiarly empowering to call this perp on his bullshit while my boobs were hanging out and I was wearing a silly hat. I recommend it to you all. Don't just send a letter to that old date-rapist from college! Go up to him at his workplace and don't forget to wear the most ridiculous hat you can find. Pompoms... cowgirl... maybe a chef hat? The silliness will give you courage!

And afterwards I went dancing with my girlfriend at the Good Vibes party, which started out slow but turned out to be super fun. The go-go dancers were just great. (I love Calvin, the cheerful, muscley wrestler! And the naughty schoolgirls!) The dance routine to "Bad Boys" was worth the entire admission price - as hot james-dean style butches flounced around combing back their hair & smoking while their Leave it to Beaver-style parents protested... It was brilliant! We bounced around for a while. On the way out, I got a goody bag with ... get this... "Exploding Vagina Golf Balls". Technically it should be Exploding Vulva Golf Balls. The packaging and the idea really cross the line of dumbness and foray very far into "incredibly odd" territory. I'm fascinated. Who would think of this? What genius was sitting around in the factory and thought, "I know! Exploding Vulva Golf Balls! The world needs them!"

Rox, Capture those moments of your life!

As noted below, Roxanne is close to making good on her new year's resolution, which makes her my favorite ambitious (read: crazy) bookworm. Rox, why not take pix of the book covers, or your exhausted carcas, and do a 30 second audio for each one in your own BubbleShare (yes my client) album (see the Add This Album to My Blog button) to shorten your review process?

OR with the RSS feed, we can easily subscribe to you "Rox Reads" album for NEXT YEAR'S READATHON!!?

GET IT? NEXT YEAR'S READATHON?

Of course, you could just post, but I'm biased. ;-)

My new year's resolution is for Rox to read 25 books aloud to me in 2006.

For a quick sample of a BubbleShare album, get the commentary and pix (AKA: FOOD) from a charity event George and I went to last weekend. Remember to scare yourself by clicking the audio button and hearing my voice. ;-)



To see KC & The Sunshine Band (YES HE IS STILL ALIVE!) visit my blog. ;-)

Learning to See Goodness

Certain people are rather challenging to my ability to see their true selves under all the !%$@& they've developed on top. I know there is a basic goodness within all of us, how could it not be, but being able to see and relate to it within someone who doesn't see it within themselves, well now that's the test of our spiritual accomplishment.

I also think that being a Buddha isn't about how we relate to people who are being easily lovable. The Buddha is a Buddha because she actually sees everyone as lovable, even those the rest of us would call "hard to love." We don't have to agree with the decisions others make in order to love them. That is the idea I have to keep reminding myself of.

I am learning to separate discrimination from judgment. Discrimination about what we will or will not do, believe, or contribute to, is a responsibility. But judgment is a part of building up our ego identity as "the virtuous one" or "the smart one" or "the martyr" or whatever defines us as "better." For us to be better, someone else has to be worse. We are then defining ourselves by what we are not, and using others towards that end.

So my path of awakening is a path of learning how to see without the confines of all my identities that require me to relate to others by their personality traits in order to define myself as whoever I'm supposed to be. Looking for the "soft spot" Pema Chodron speaks of is something useful to remember in trying to do that. I would phrase it, "look beyond the false; do not be deceived. You will find the truth."

-- from the comments thread at The Goodness Blog

When Everything We Do (including blogging) Is An Addiction

After perusing today's New York Times, I have determined that we live in a time where every breath, tick, or activity we engage in that is not directly related to work or family is considerd an addiction. Hooked on the Web: Help is on the Way (in the Style section, no less) details the problem that so many of us seem to be developing with our excessive/obsessive Internet use.

Here's the skinny on onlineaholics

These specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are rushing to treat it. Yet some in the field remain skeptical that heavy use of the Internet qualifies as a legitimate addiction, and one academic expert called it a fad illness.

Skeptics argue that even obsessive Internet use does not exact the same toll on health or family life as conventionally recognized addictions. But, mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of Internet addiction say, a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet.

But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.

I don't know...sounds more like it's just easier in many ways to do stuff on the 'net than it is to go out and do it. When there's no longer a town square to venture out to, when one has to drive from here to there, and never meets a friendly soul, one might just as soon spend more quality time online than in the physical world.

Sometimes the better community is online rather than in one's own backyard.

Perhaps, though, this is just the disease-du-jour. In an article titled "Our National Eating Disorder" (NYT 10/17/04), our problem then was carbophobia We'd developed such a reverence for Atkins-style diet programs that many of us here and across the Pond in the U.K. were developing an unhealthy aversion to breads, pastas and potatoes. We were neglecting the need for healthy carbs, and were getting hysterical over Panina Bread places moving into our neighborhoods.

Personally, I think our latest "addiction" is just another buzzword for some enterprising shrinks to solemly banter around, then sell it to some poor souls who have a general existentialist angst about life and feel a pathological need to patholigize themselves.

The problem isn't with unhealthy internet use, or an unhealthy aversion to carbos, but an unhealthy and bovine-like acceptance of psychobabble.

Makes me long for the days of simple patholigies like "sex addiction"...and Bill Clinton.

Now, where'd I put that bag of potato chips?? I'm gonna be here for awhile....

crossposted on Snarkhaholic

Wacky-Off: Jean Schmidt vs. Pat Robertson

I can't decide who's wackier, Ohio's Jean Schmidt or Pat Robertson. Here's the first of my pair of limericks about Jean Schmidt's outrageous House floor speech, in which she called John Murtha a coward because of his Iraq withdrawal plan:

A Rep From Ohio Named Jean
By Madeleine Begun Kane

A Rep from Ohio named Jean
Called John Murtha a coward. How mean!
The Dems were quite riled
At her unprovoked bile.
She beat Hackett? How sad and obscene!

You can find both Schmidt limericks plus a Pat Robertson limerick here.

And here's my audio / podcast version.

because We need our own place!

I have started a Webring of sorts for all single moms. Its a way for us together and support one another. If you are a single mom please join my webring and lets make it Our webring....
Single Mommies Ring homepage
Or Just Join by:
Clicking here!

Bob Dylan and Juan Cole... Brilliant!

First time I post here, thanks for inviting me to be part of this!!!

I have to start with a post I already put on my blog but it's just simply such a good article/post, I think you'll all appreciate it!

Click here for the latest Juan Cole article

It's quite the blow on our "dear" low percentage approval rating government!

Yet Another White House Leak

Now that Harriet Miers' office has announced mandatory ethics classes for all White House EOP staffers, I guess we're supposed to forget about Libby's indictment and Karl Rove's ethical transgressions. Of course, these classes are nothing more than window dressing designed to dupe us into thinking Bush gives a damn about ethics.

How do I know this? A top secret White House source leaked this Harriet Miers memo to me, in a MadKane.com exclusive.

And on another topic, I'm newly in love with Senator Harry Reid and Rule 21. Senator Frist, however, doesn't share my feelings. And that brings me to my latest limerick.

Finally, my latest podcast is here.

4 Judge Sam Alito Limericks

Now that Harriet Miers is back doing whatever it is she does best (writing Bush mash notes and covering his tracks?) Bush has a new nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. And I'm afraid he's just the sort of extremist judge we feared a weakened Bush would come up with - 3rd Circuit Judge Samuel Alito. And that means it's time for some limericks. Here's one of four:

There Once Was A Judge Named Alito
By Madeleine Begun Kane

There once was a judge named Alito,
Who's often called Judge Sam Scalito.
He's fond of state powers.
At labor he glowers.
The Dems must Alito's name veto.

All four of the limericks are here.

And my audio / podcast version is here.

That Pressing Engagement? Just Do It

You may remember my post about mammograms last month. Now a report has been released which shows a consensus of opinion from seven different studies about the effectiveness of mammography in detecting breast cancer in its early stages.

HOUSTON - An unprecedented statistical assault indicates that mammography
screening has made a significant contribution to the decline in breast cancer
mortality in recent years -- an issue of contentious running debate.
Seven
teams of statisticians -- using the same data sets but different statistical
models -- reached substantial agreement that mammography screening has played a
role in the 24% decline in the death rate between 1990 and 2000.

So, long story short: Just do the thing. Make the appointment and get the mammogram. It's not a traumatic event, despite all the jokes and limericks and "humorous" crap you'll find online. It's a little bit of brief discomfort; not even enough to be categorized as "pain".

If you need a jolt of inspiration, pick one of these aphorisms and be jolted:

Forewarned is forearmed.

Knowledge is power.

And the truth shall set you free.

Heck, pick all three aphorisms. Write them on your forearm with a black finepoint Sharpie. Have them tattooed on your forehead. Whatever it takes to help you move off the dime and get the thing done. It's your life.



This post also appears here.

Fitzmas Madness

Like so many of you, I'm anxiously awaiting indictments from Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury and hoping for a very merry Fitzmas. So naturally, I've written a poem, which begins:

Fitzmas Madness
By Madeleine Begun Kane

I keep scanning the Net
For some news from Pat Fitz.
If he don't indict soon,
I may go on the fritz.

I can't bear the suspense.
I can't stand the delay...

You can find the entire Fitzmas Madness poem here. And you can find my audio / podcast version here.

A-Changin' Times

A recent USA Today article on teens and sex no doubt has parents all a-titter. And for good reason: "Teens define sex in new ways" cites a number of recent studies that say many American kids consider oral sex to be no big deal. In fact, some teenagers who have experienced oral sex still consider themselves virgins. (Thanks loads, Bill and Monica.)

An excerpt:

A study published in the journal Pediatrics in April supports the view that adolescents believe oral sex is safer than intercourse, with less risk to their physical and emotional health.

The study of ethnically diverse high school freshmen from California found that almost 20 percent had tried oral sex, compared with 13.5 percent who said they had intercourse.

More of these teens believed oral sex was more acceptable for their age group than intercourse, even if the partners are not dating. ...

The federal study [by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], based on data collected in 2002 and released last month, found that 55 percent of 15- to 19-year-old boys and 54 percent of girls reported getting or giving oral sex, compared with 49 percent of boys and 53 percent of girls the same ages who reported having had intercourse. ...

The $16 million study, which took six years to develop, complete and analyze, surveyed almost 13,000 teens, men and women ages 15-44 on a variety of sexual behaviors.

As experts interviewed by USA Today note, becoming sexually active at too early an age is potentially dangerous. "When teenagers fool around before they're ready or have a very casual attitude toward sex, they proceed toward adulthood with a lack of understanding about intimacy," warned Sabrina Weill, author of The Real Truth About Teens & Sex. "What it means to be intimate is not clearly spelled out for young people by their parents and people they trust."

Though I find this news deeply troubling, it does not surprise me. When my daughter, now 17, was in middle school, she told me about her classmates' experimentations with oral sex. Yes, in middle school. And the kids were engaging in the behavior just for kicks -- love and caring and commitment had nothing to do with it. I was horrified and surprised then, but now, when many teens relish getting "benefits" from friends as a matter of course, I find the news not shocking, but depressing.

There was something in the USA Today piece, however, that floored me. Peruse these stats from a 2002 CDCP survey:

percentage of teens who have had intercourse and their ages:

Boys
15 - 25.1%
16 - 37.5%
17 - 46.9%
18 - 62.4%
19 - 68.9%


Girls
15 - 26.0%
16 - 39.6%
17 - 49.0%
18 - 70.3%
19 - 77.4%

percentage of teens who have had oral sex and their ages:

Boys
15 - 35.1%
16 - 42.0%
17 - 55.7%
18 - 65.4%
19 - 74.2%

Girls
15 - 26.0%
16 - 42.4%
17 - 55.5%
18 - 70.2%
19 - 74.4%

Do you see what I see? If these findings are to be believed, more girls than boys are having sexual intercourse -- and at ages 16, 18, and 19, more girls than boys are participating in oral sex. Compare these results to those of two 1995 federal studies that tracked the percentages of teens having intercourse:



Sources: 1995 National Survey of Family Growth and 1995 National Survey of Adolescent Males

How times have changed.

Is this sexual equality? Is the traditional double standard -- sexually active guys are studs; girls who "do it" are sluts -- a thing of the past? Somehow, I doubt it.

This much I believe: Whether male or female, it is healthier and more intelligent for teens to wait until they are truly ready to handle relationships and responsibility before having sex, oral or otherwise. And it's time to put my 9-year-old son under lock and key.

from all facts and opinions

The Judy Miller Quartet (of Limericks)

I've finished reading the two Judy Miller epics: Miller's incomplete and implausible My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room and the New York Times' only slightly more satisfying The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal. And after wading through both, my opinion of Judy Miller and the New York Times has sunk even lower. So naturally, I've written Miller some limericks. Here's one of them:

Ms. Miller Has Written Her Tale
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Ms. Miller has written her tale,
And as tales go, it's rather a whale.
Her memory's convenient,
On Libby she's lenient.
What a shame that she got out of jail!

You'll find all four of my Judy Miller limericks here.
And the audio version is here.

Mired In Harriet Miers & Harriet's Song

The odd relationship between George Bush and Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, specifically the schoolgirlish notes she's sent to Bush over the years, inspired me to write a new song parody:
Harriet's Song: Bush Is the Sunshine Of Her Life.
And my podcast version of Harriet's Song is here.

Also, Harriet Miers has inspired/provoked me to write three poems in honor of her nomination. Here's one of them:

Bush Named The Unqualified Miers
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Bush named the unqualified Miers
To the Court when O'Connor retires.
Her only credential?
She's Dub reverential.
And that should raise Democrats' ires.

All three of my Harriet Miers poems are here.
And my audio / podcast version is here.

We Media: "Talk Amongst Yourselves..."

Wednesday. Around 6:15 a.m.--after a troublesome train ride, a massive case of the fidgets, and four hours' sleep--I found myself standing outside the Associated Press building at 450 W. 33rd Street, with a cup of catering wagon coffee and a very fresh donut. I was there as a volunteer for the We Media Conference put together by the Media Center at the American Press Institute. I couldn't really afford to go otherwise...and I really, *really* wanted to be there. (must thank Gloria Pan for passing my name along to Beth Laing so I could get this great op.)

For the most part, thru my eyes, We Media was a bit of a surreal experience. As I re-arranged attendee nametags, I recognized some of the names, but not others. I did, though, make note that most of the people attending were pretty high up on the Media Food Chain, even if some don't like to admit it. I greeted them with a nice smile and a "Good Morning" and gave them their tags. Some even called me by my name.

It was, though, rather obvious that these were The Media. And I'm just a Citizen. My challenge, then, was to find points of equilibrium between Myself and This Media. (Another mission was to chat with Jay Rosen, who got me a bit peeved after his BlogHer comments...)

Another clue that this was going to be a case of the little orange in a group of shiny apples was when Dale Peskin, Co-Director of the Media Center, commented in his opening remarks that it was surprising how many people blogged.

Surprising? Did Dale's Father ever yell at Walter Kronkite like lots of our Dads did?? Did Dale ever spend an hour on the telephone recounting a life-changing event to a friend--like a lot of us do daily? Blogging, and other forms of collaborative/social media have become the ways in which We the People are attempting to get into the conversation all the Media Folks keep having every day. We don't think the pundits are any better than us and think our voices are valid. We relieve our existentialist angst, that sense of being buried alive under Information, thru blogging, wikis, messageboards, email and all sorts of media--as
Chris Willis succinctly pointed out when he mentioned "collaborative media"(perhaps Dale was just setting up Chris to comment--you never know.)

The first panel was We The News--News moguls, from NPR, BBC, CBS and AP--discussing what "the people" are doing with news. Lots of talk how "the people" are shaping things, how "the people" (considered to be the 18-34 age cohort) are changing the way Big Media writes and disseminates news...yadda, yadda, yadda. The only one on the panel who has a clue was Farai Chideya, who mentioned how "the people in the caboose" of media culture need to be brought to the fore. But, even Chideya missed a key point--to get from the caboose one has to go thru the Club Car. And there are loads of us--average middle-class, bach degree'd, working-stiff non-tech, non-journalism citizens in the 35-59 age cohort who are sitting in that Club Car.

We blog. Often. Just check my personal blog to see some of us. Don't count us out before you've even looked at us.

There was lots and lots of talk about "citizens" but there weren't any citizens in the room! So that was the BIG PROBLEM. (I cannot fault the conference organizers on this...most blogging conferences are akin to "closed shops" or Churches of True Believers--some moreso, like the Blog Business Summit, than others.)

So, when the Speed Dating break between the We The News session and Al Gore's keynote address came along, I stood there, wondering who the heck in this room of august media types I could talk with. And then Jay Rosen came by. What an op! So I said "Jay! Hi! I'm Tish G." He laughed and warmly shook my hand...

Jay and I got to talking about what was going on, and I told him how I was shaking my head at most of it, how people like Larry Kramer just weren't getting it, that the answer to Watts Wacker's question of "Is this the right audience?" was an absolute "NO!" and that the group on the stage was preaching to the converted, Jay said something to the effect of "Well, they're vertical communicators trying to understand those on the horizontal..."

completely right. Jay Rosen and I, apparently, see eye to eye on this matter. Folks like Larry Kramer, Farai Chideya, Tom Curley, and Richard Sambrook--a bunch of vertical, top-down communicators, however well-intentioned--were trying to get a grip on what the Folks, the peer-to-peer, or horizontal communicators do with blogs. Jay and I agreed that they really weren't getting it at all, that there was too much emphasis on this or that particular group at the expense of the whole; that there was far too much emphasis on monetizing and business models; and that this sort of thinking just does not apply to what goes on in peer-to-peer communications.

Sure, lots of us would love to make money off our blog-hobby, but the only ones who stand to make large money off our blog hobby seem to be Big Media. I'm kind of offended by the idea of Big Media making money off something they don't understand.

Al Gore took the podium, and I was struck by the timbre of his voice--smooth, mellow and southern. I could listen to Al recite the phone book. He had, though,great things to say. This, particularly, got me thinking:

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.

When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.

All I could think about was how we have all this media of all kinds blabbering around us all the time, and we have absolutely no time for our own thoughts.

Al continued:

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

And I got to thinking: There is no "marketplace of ideas" because we are constantly fed the ideas of others. We are constantly acquiring information and knowledge, but we do not process it. We have 24 hour media--if we are not seeking entertainment we are seeking information. We do not stop for fear we will be uncool or left out of the loop. We can't think on our own. We can't apply the Rule of Reason because we have no time for Contemplation.

But that's just me. What do I know?

I skipped the We Inc. panel. It was extremely hot and I was feeling a bit lightheadded. Jason Calacanis chaired that panel and I found out later (courtesy of Ron Mwangaguhunga
) that Jason sold Weblogs, Inc. to AOL for $25 mil.

Had I known that tid bit, I would have introduced myself when we smiled at each other sometime during lunch. ;-)

Had a great little chat with Susan Mernit, about blogging (she mentioned Tristan Louis, that he is a very good writer/blogger) and how I link this blog with my personal blog...how it is bold of me. I'd never thought that much about it. Looking around at all the Media Types, I thought that maybe it's about time for me to give it a bit of consideration...

At lunchtime, I was a bit too fried to do any socializing...just bided my time watching the suits and Those Better at Networking do what they do.

After lunch, I chose to assign myself to the
Media Gawking and Citizen Journalism discussions. Glad I did.

Media Gawking consisted of Jay Rosen, Jessica Cohen and Patrick Phillips. I didn't expect much from Jessica, but got more from Jay. Jessica did voice an opinion that many of "the people" have about Public Eye (CBS's blogging venture): that it's a "sad, sad little website." Nobody faults Vaughn Ververs though. I think a lot of us feel sorry for Ververs--and know that Larry Kramer's inability to understand the blogosphere is part of what censors Ververs (but we figured that out on Buzzmachine some time ago.)

What struck me most in the Citizen Journalism discussion was something Lex Alexander said about the necessity of mentoring of "citizen journalists." Lex gets that it's not about changing citizens into journalists (unless they actually want to be real journalists--then they can go to journalism school), but mentoring them certain principles of journalism, helping with the writing, etc...but not censoring nor changing anything. (I'd talk to Lex about this later. He's a fun guy!) Although here again, in this session, somebody didn't get a very subtle point about their subject: Susan Defife of Backfence.com argued that citizen journalists should write about anything they want. I understand Susan's POV--when you're in a big market area, where the papers never report on the local high school soccer game, it's important for blogs to do so. But if one lives in a middle market, like Springfield, Mass, is it necessary to have blogs to discuss high school soccer when we can watch high school soccer on the 11 o'clock news? Perhpas there's a point where there's media saturation even with blogs--possibly to the detriment of real journalism on harder subjects like government corruption.

By the time we got to the whole In Us We Trust discussion (highly philosophical) I was very, very fried and half paying attention. For the most part, I got that this was a lot of academic philosophizing, that it was intentionally meant to be over the heads of everybody, but I had a bit of trouble with what seemed to be a celebration of cultural relativism and the corporation. I'd have to read the transcripts again to see if I'm right on that one...but,personally, I'm not a big fan of cultural relativism nor of corporations. I don't like the idea that corporations might manipulate blogs and bloggers so that we trust them more. Why should we trust corporations any more than we trust the government? All I could think of was Rollerball (the James Cann/Norman Jewison version).

It is very strange to be sitting in a roomful of people who could easily be deciding the fate of the media you and millions of others use daily for personal expression, yet how many of them have what Jay Rosen calls "peer-to-peer" communication? How much do they understand of this thing that they see as a tool for corporations? How well do they understand our existentialist angst if they do not experience it for themselves? I'm not sure Karen Stephenson, Watts Wacker, Craig Newmark, nor Richard Edelman fully nor totally comprehend any of it.

Then again, there are few of us in the trenches who understand them either. Maybe that's the way the world works.

When we broke for cocktail hour, I got to talk a bit with Watts Wacker (read about it in this entry)...Lex Alexander and Jenny D (who was there blogging for the Media Center--she couldn't afford to go either) about citizen journalism....Introduced myself to Rebecca MacKinnon who I might run into one of these days at the Berkman Center...and caught the train on time.

I was exhausted and my sprained ankle was swollen to elephantine proportions. Had a 20-something kid flirt with me on the train. Got home to Mass sometime close to midnight. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

(oh, if you want to find good articles on We Media, do a search on IceRocket.com...you'll get the best results.)

(originally posted on Snarkaholic 10/7/05)

tags:we media,We Media05,Blogging, Blog, Blogs,Journalism, Media