September 04, 2004
Filthy lucre, forceful moderator
: Well, I pissed off (and depressed) Douglas Rushkoff at the PS122 blogging panel the other night.
I shouldn't be surprised. Here I was, the guy in the suit in the heart of what wants to be the counterculture on the Lower East Side. I thought I'd get ridden out of town on a rail because I supported the wars in Iraq and, for that matter, Afghanistan and because I wasn't off getting arrested to show my dyspepsia with the current Bush et al.
But, no. I should have seen this coming: I got in trouble for being a -- gasp -- capitalist.
Maybe that's an ounce unfair but, hell, it's my blog and I'll be unfair if I want to. At least I'll link to and quote Rushkoff by name (to him, I'm merely "the moderator:" But as we veered over into the realm of career blogging, we touched briefly on the subject of whether ads hurt blogs - and that's where I think the whole thing died. And even depressed me a bit.
I tried to make the point that the early Internet and early rave culture were alike in that they were ad-free zones - alternatives to the free market reality in which we were living. And that's what made them so powerful. I was trying to go on to explain that there might be a value in ad-free blogging; that doing it for money, for ads, may not change our writing on a conscious level, but that we may be changed - yes, corrupted - by the ads we're endorsing, er, displaying.
The moderator shut me down with great force, dismissing the entire notion of ads affecting writers as silly - that the marketplace would judge the integrity of those writers accordingly. Now, I've been shut down by co-panelists, but not by moderators. And I would have chalked it up to my own 'sensitivity' had I not received more than a few emails from people calling the moment to my attention.
So I thought I'd call it to yours - not because I feel slighted or hurt, but because I believe that the underlying assumption that the market corrects all problems, eventually, or that the market is itself 'value neutral,' is incorrect. I'm not challenging free market capitalism; God bless the USA and all that.
I'm only challenging the perception that we are living in a marketplace. We don't have to use the metaphor of a competitive economy to understand this world; it may as well be a collaborative ecology.
Plus, if I put ads on this blog, it'd be the end of something. No? First, let me deal with the notions that I "shut [him] down with great force" and that moderators are neutered of opinions. Sorry. I have opinions and I state them. In fact, I believe that moderators -- just like bloggers and journalists -- should be transparent about their views. If I was too forceful, I apologize (and did so in Douglas' comments; I like the guy). But I was also trying to involve as many of the people in the room as possible and not just the people who happened to be sitting up front; that's the way I do these things (a la Bloggercon); love me or leave me. Prof. Rushkoff didn't like my pace; another blogger complained that it was "too academic." Can't win. Don't expect to. But I hardly think I'm Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews!
Now to the substance: What I said to Douglas -- and others agreed -- was that whether you accept ads is entirely your choice.
If you don't want to have ads on your blog and believe that ads would not just present conflict of interest but could corrupt the very medium, well, then, fine, have no ads.
But if you want ads to help support yourself in this new medium -- and thus support the growth of this medium with more contributions from more voices and more perspectives with more information and conversation and value, then you can do that. Maybe you can even quit working for The Man; what could be more counterculture than that?
The beauty of this medium -- yes, the rave quality of it -- is that I can do what I want to do and you can do what you want to do and our freedom is not zero-sum. It ain't a slam dance, man.
I also said on that night and will repeat now that as soon as you accept advertising, you do have to deal with issues of conflict of interest and transparency and your own credibility. This is a matter of individual integrity. That's exactly what I dealt with when I started Entertainment Weekly and the starstruck bosses at Time Inc. tried to make me be nicer to big-studio movies. I quit. Ads don't kill integrity. Corruption does. I've faced that first-hand.
I also said in Douglas' comments that, yes, legions of slimy bloggers with no credibility and lots of greed could affect the reputation or credibility of this new medium as a whole. But given the crush of folks who will fact-check-your-ass (trademark Ken Layne) -- just as Rushkoff and another anti-ad, anti-me blogger at the session have challenged me -- the likelihood of such corruption on a mass scale is reduced greatly.
The bigger choice here is whether we want to keep blogs as an elitist, edge medium or whether we want to see it expand. I know plenty of bloggers who would love to quit their job to blog (or get jobs blogging). When I ran a session on making blogs make money at Bloggercon at Harvard, I thought I'd hear a lot of this kind of latter-day-socialist sniping, but I heard none. People love blogging and want to find a way to support themselves doing it. What the hell is wrong with that?
I remind you, media prof. Rushkoff: Without advertising, we would not have The New York Times or The Guardian. Is the world better off that way? Or should we rely on rave news?
And let's go one step further: Douglas advertises his own books on his own site and his blog with eagerness. He plugs the articles he writes for magazines that pay him because they are paid by magazines. I helped him plug his Open Source Democracy PDF done for a group that paid him to write it (and didn't even mention that I never had the energy to fisk it, though I did print it out and mark up lots of things with which I disagreed).
I'm going to be pretty unapologetic about all of this. I'm unapologetic about having a lively discussion at a panel. Want to disagree with me? Disagree! Discuss!
And I'm unapologetic about hoping that we can find advertising support for this new medium -- for those who want it -- to help the medium expand and hear new voices and new viewpoints and more citizens.
Yes, we are living in a marketplace: a marketplace of ideas. And trying to restrict that marketplace to just those who can afford to play in it and don't need support to be there will limit the diversity and value and openness and transparency of it.
I am eager to see bloggers who do this only and exclusively for the love it. But I expect them to be equally open to those who do it and also need to eat.
. . .
Nicest thing said about me in I don't know how long...
: Tom Watson calls me "reliably centrist." Yes, I thought so.
. . .
If this blog had a soundtrack...
: RexBlog is now an iTunes blog.
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LAX shut down
: TV has it; the Internet doesn't: FoxNews and KABC are reporting an explosion at LAX. They say there were two incidents at the airport today. The airport has been shut down, at least to outgoing flights.
: CNN is saying a "flashlight with corroded batteries exploded" injuring seven people. That sounds like more than a flashlight.
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Blog advertising works
: Henry Copeland's BlogAds just placed a whole mess of ads for Sex and the City on TBS.
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Lobbying under the knife
: G'bless Hillary Clinton: She takes the opportunity of her huband's quadruple bypass surgery to lobby on the health insurance crisis in this country: "We're delighted we have good health insurance. That makes a big difference. And I hope someday everybody will be able to say the same thing." Damned straight.
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September 03, 2004
Stop the presses: I just posted this!
: By odd accident, I found this press release on GoogleNews from a guy announcing that he'd just posted his 100th blog post! Surprised he didn't give the exclusive to Dan Rather. My favorite bit: While no one has called him - yet - with a film offer such as happened to the famed 'Baghdad blogger', Addicott says he has been approached with a book deal but for now will make no commitments while the company's services are in rapid growth mode - referring those requests to the Company's scientific advisors. And I'm going to send out a press release saying that no one has yet offered me a National Book Award... because I haven't written a book.
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Iraqi blogs on radio
: NPR's The World tonight aired a report (audio link) on Iraq's bloggers, including Ali, Raed's mother, and Salam Pax. They said there are more than 70 Iraqi bloggers now and they plugged Ali and Mohammed's run for the National Assembly.
. . .
The slime spreads
: On NBC news tonight, they said that nine of the dead mass-murderers in Russia were Arab and that there was a connection to al Qaeda.
They do this there, they can do this here.
Diligence. Furor. Strength. We must wipe them out.
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Terrorism is the world's war
: It's impossible to express outrage equal to the terrorist atrocity in Russia. Children, they used and killed children.
Last week, it was said that the two plane explosions were Russia's 9/11. Now there is this, another 9/11.
Meanwhile, in France, they awaited the fate of journalists held by more Islamic fascists. (Update: They are reportedly now in the hands of a moderate group.)
Those are this week's terror stories. There are stories every week from countries around the world.
Yesterday, I ended up in a conversation on the PATH train -- which is a rarity -- with a man who lives in New York, who said we have "forgiven" and "forgotten" 9/11 too quickly.
Look at what happened in Russia and pray it does not happen here.
When I started this blog days after 9/11, I called it World War III. We are all at war and the tragedy in Russia should remind us all of that -- in America, in Russia, in France, in Germany, in Pakistan, in Indonesia, in Spain. Terror is the world's war.
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No drip, he
: Blogger David Radulski gets to the bottom of an Internet rumor, started from a military man's email, that Starbucks refused to give coffee to G.I.'s in Iraq. Starbucks, wisely, tracked down the Marine who wrote the email, explained how the company can donate only to official charities but how many employees send coffee; the Marine sent an email taking back the accusation; and here are the emails.
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Clinton's heart
: I think I just heard on TV that Bill Clinton's getting quad bypass surgery.
: UPDATE: Confirmed. Emergency surgery today. CBS details here. A source close to Mr. Clinton tells CBS News that Mr. Clinton complained of chest pains Thursday night and was taken to a hospital near his home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Doctors, according to our source, found a blockage. Mr. Clinton is now in the New York Presbyterian hospital. The NY Times has an alert saying he had a heart attack; no further details.
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 The newest blogger on the block: Vanity Fair's James Wolcott!
: I am proud to be the first to announce that my favorite critic and social commentator, Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, is now blogging.
Here's a sample of his first post on Zell Miller's speech. The blue eyes of wrath. The gnarled hands gripping the air as if clutching a liberal in a lethal chokehold.
Zell Miller did not disappoint millions of disenfranchised Americans with Confederate flags decorating their basements when he delivered his rousing speech to the Republican National Convention last night.
His inner Bunsen burner was still ablaze when he hit the cable news shows afterwards to unlease additional Zellfire. There he met resistance. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer, in an apparent research mixup, asked actual reportorial questions regarding Miller's contradictory statements over the years regarding Kerry etc, and the old boy began babbling like Lionel Barrymore....
Inviting Zell Miller to the Republican convention to give voice to lynch mobs who feel neglected by the Democratic Party will prove to be a prehistoric bonehead mistake and an early Christmas present of Schadenfreude to his former colleagues. I picture certain Democratic bigwigs reacting the way Brian Dennehy did in that wonderful made-for-TV docudrama about Three's Company as ABC chief Fred Silverman. Hearing the news of Suzanne Somers' latest contract tantrum, Dennehy's Freddie takes a rich puff on his cigar, smiles, and croons with satisfaction, "Not my problem anymore."
Zell Miller: Not our problem anymore. And this: Just now on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough described Miller's speech as a "barnburner," presumably intending a compliment. But any reader of Faulkner knows that there's few souls rottener than that of a barnburner, who leaves nothing in his wake than rage and destruction. In Faulkner Country, a barnburner is driven out of the county. In Bush Country, he's given a privileged timeslot. Whether you love or hate what he says -- and I know you will -- you have to love the way Wolcott says it. And now you can link to it and admire or argue with it, as you please. Wolcott is joining the conversation.
Wolcott will do much more than write about politics. He's a critic, so he'll criticize. He recommends books, movies, and blogs.
: There's a bit of back story to this:
Wolcott has been reading and writing about blogs for sometime (see this post quoting his April column on the political blogs). He was on my list of people who should be blogging (who's on yours?). But Vanity Fair wasn't online (some tried to blame me for that, since I am a corporate cousin but it's not my fault... well, not completely) and so Wolcott was not online.
Now VF is coming online (very soon) and so when I saw the man in charge of the venture, editor David Friend (one of the nicest guys in the Conde Nast building -- and I don't mean to damn him with faint praise saying that) I quietly cajoled: You have to include blogs. Oh, he said, we want to, but you know how it works in the world of corporate technology: Major studies of blogging software will ensue; months will drag on; posts will go unposted.
Who would blog? I asked.
Wolcott wants to, he said.
This became a holy cause. I'm a great admirer of Wolcott's. He is the critic's critic. I wanted to help. I said that since I was once a critic myself, this would be like a lowly Vegas lounge crooner finding Frank Sinatra stranded on the side of the road with a flat and stopping to give him a lift.
So we conspired. Getting a blog up is easy, I said. Jim can just do it on his own (in time to promote his new book). I showed Jim how to blog on Movable Type and he was amazed: No editors, no layouts, no copy editors, no production hassles, no delays: Push and publish. Stacey Sekimori designed the blog and set it up on Hosting Matters and, voila, Wolcott is blogging. That's the precisely the beauty of this new publishing world: It is that easy. Even the pros can do it.
So enjoy. Give Wolcott link love.
: Update: Jim gets an authentic bloggy welcome: sniping and snarks. See the comments.
: Gawker's Jessica Coen says: While VF has largely ignored the internet, Wolcott's new venture perhaps signifies the invasion of editor Graydon Carter's foot soldiers into our precious haven.
Blogging is officially over.
: Vox says...
. . .
And Joan Rivers does the RNC red carpet
: Jay Rosen wonders whether convention coverage could (not necessarily should) change radically next time around so that a party sells exclusive rights to cover its show to one network, as happens with the Oscars and the Super Bowl.
Blogger Rex Hammock (the guy who blogged meeting Bush a few months ago) attended the convention and saw them trying to turn it into the Oscars.
Well, it's not exactly as if the convention is half as entertaining as even the dullest Oscars (and it's even longer). And there is that matter of the public's right to know and all that. But don't get caught up in the details. We're talking TV. We're talking high concept.
If you want a network to give the convention more than an hour of coverage, then don't give it to everyone; don't turn it into a dull commodity.
In a audio interview with Chris Lydon, Rosen said the relationship of TV to conventions is one of unrequited love. The conventions tried to make TV love them. They turned the stages into sets, they put stars on stage, they produced soundbites. Didn't work.
But now we see that FoxNews beat all the big boys with its coverage of the RNC. It'd be even bigger if it were exclusive; they'd put more resources and coverage and promotion into it; more people would watch. What's not to love?
Tom Biro doesn't love the idea because there'd be even less balance. OK. But this assumes that there is balance and that the networks do more than pontificate. Maybe if they actually reported and fact-checked the speeches and found news, that'd be worthwhile. But they don't. And anyway, there is no news at conventions.
The conventions are just commercials anyway, so maybe we should just admit it and turn them into infomercials.
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Gorevision
: Al Gore's TV network, Indtv, is going public with a web page that describes the network and gets it half right: TV can be better. Much better.
Want to see more than just reality television? Tired of news outlets that cover celebrity trials instead of tackling critical questions? Bored with shows that don't challenge or engage you? So are we.
The sad reality of TV is that young adult viewers are coveted, but not really asked to participate. You can be characters, but rarely creators. We want to change all that. And with your help, we will create shows that are bold, irreverent, intelligent and relevant to the passions and experiences of our audience. I say they got it half right because if they really wanted to be ballsy about this new network and how they present it, then the people (formerly known as the audience) wouldn't just help create shows, they would create them.
Become the first network that hands over the network to the people: You create the shows and we watch, you speak and we listen. That should be what the net execs of the future say.
Or better yet, get rid of the first-second-third person separations altogether: This is our network. To paraphrase Jay Rosen: The people are the programmers and the network executives are the audience. The people don't help the executives make TV; it's the other way around: The executives help the people make TV. Now that would be new. That would be TV worth watching.
Also, I suggest they stop talking about "young adults;" that turns people into a demographic rather than democratic equals. Programming to a demographic nearly always ends up smelling like condescension or pandering. You don't hear MTV speaking to young people; they simply air the music and programming young people like.
Full disclosure: Someone I know sent an email intro between me and Gore's partner in this venture, Joel Hyatt. I sent him email offering to talk and share experience about citizens' media and exploding TV and interactivity, just because I find this interesting and I really do hope they invent something new, media of the people. He never responded. OK, so I'll do what bloggers do: I'll share my advice, whatever it's worth, right here, in public, and solicit yours, too. [via Lost Remote]
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September 02, 2004
What's wrong with GoogleNews
: Strange crap like this pops up as the lead story today. Once again, GoogleNews gives prominence to fringe opinion sites, treating them like news sites (when I've suggested before that it would actually be compelling to create a service called GoogleViews and put them there) while ignoring blogs that at least link to news sources.
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Dancin' fools
: John Perry Barlow gives us a report from the front (chorus) line of his dancing protests/theater/whatever: After four missions, Dancing in the Streets has exceeded my fondest expectations.... We generally make the credentialed Republicans we encounter visibly nervous and spread good will and humor to most of the rest, including the police, who could well use it at the moment....
Republicans were hard to encounter at first. They are being quarantined behind the blue membrane of the NYPD (for whom my affection and respect has only increased through this experience). In addition, they spend much of their time inside the Garden having a lot less fun than we were. (As several of them told us.) Levels of engagement have increased with fine-tuning. The results vary, ranging from the Stepford husband whom we made so nervous that he walked into a plate glass window to the sweet young delegate from Oklahoma who tore off his tie and joined us for the balance of the evening. Video, please.
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FoxNews, the home team
: It's utterly unsurprising to me that FoxNews beat the big three networks with this coverage of the Republican convention. Conservatives watching a conservative event want to see it with fellow conservatives.
Don't start whining about an "echo chamber." This is perfectly predictable, understandable, normal social behavior: When you're watching a Yankees game, do you go to a Red Sox (or should I say Indians'?) bar? Of course, not. Did the Democrats rush to watch FoxNews' coverage of their convention? No.
And don't start wailing about "fragmentation." Fragmentation is good; it means that people are finding what they want to find; it means the end of one-size-fits-all news reporting ... and media ... and politics ... and marketing. The grand "shared experience" of media was an accident of having just three networks emerge and, at the same time, kill competitive newspapers.
The shared experience of unfragmented one-size-fits-all media lasted just a few decades in this country. Before that, conservatives read conservative papers, liberals liberal papers. And democracy survived. In fact, I'd argue that it prospered because there were more viewpoints, not fewer being heard.
Media execs should pay attention to this and change not just products but even business plans as a result.
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The right to publicity
: The New York Times complains today that "police tactics mute protestors and message" -- even as, without acknowledging the obvious irony, the paper gives those protestors coverage right on its front page in that story and in a picture of a protestor against something global being carried out of Madison Square Garden.
Whoa. Let's examine the assumptions behind this: The Times assumes that if you hold a demonstration, you have some right to coverage. How come? If 10 people or 100 people gather on a street corner and shout about something, is that necessarily newsworthy? Does that mean they represent a movement with a story that needs to be heard? Aren't there better ways to measure the size of a movement these days?
Next, this assumes that mediated media is still the right, the only way to get a message across: that a movement has to shout on that corner and get arrested before Times and TV cameras to be heard. But in this new era of emerging unmediated media -- that is, the internet -- this is soon to be untrue. Going to all that trouble to perhaps get five seconds on TV or five sentences in print is not going to be the most effective and efficient way to get your message across.
MoveOn and Michael Moore and the Swifties are all more effective taking their message off the streets and online.
The Times' next assumption is that it is somehow the job of the police to help these demonstrators get publicity by letting them get close to the Garden or by waiting for cameras to arrive before arresting them if they exercise civil disobedience. Of course, that's wrong. It's the job of the police to protect New York and it's important and understandable that they are doing that swiftly and efficiently -- because of the experience of both terrorism and of violent anti-globalism nuts in Seattle.
Let me be clear: I'm all in favor of exercising the fullest right to free speech and protest. But as I pondered here and here, what's fascinating me about the scene in New York this week -- to my surprise -- is the role of these demonstrations in a new world of unmediated media where you don't -- or soon won't -- need mainstream media as the sole pipeline to the public and where our view of friends and enemies must radically change.
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And his boats are really swift
: Amazing commercial running in Jersey this week: Hyundai dealer Brad Benson comes in announcing that in the state's time of need, he has decided to run for governor. A reporter's voice asks whether he is a gay American. If gay means happy, he says, youbetcha -- and anybody who comes to Brad's Hyundai sale will be a gay American, too!
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A to Zell
: Anybody note the irony that Zell Miller complains about Kerry as a flipflopper yet Miller is the biggest flipflopper of them all. Love Kerry. Hate Kerry. Love the Democrats. Love the Republicans. The man has clearly used this patented Jarvis product.
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Choose Nukes
: I got behind a (slow) driver (in a van) from Florida this morning and saw his "Choose Life" license plate, through which the state has enabled $2.6 million to be raised for a thinly veiled anti-abortion group.
So why doesn't anybody with a message have the right to both get that message on state plates and raise money?
How about the F Bush or F Kerry plates. I know many who'd buy Drop Out Ralph plates.
Hell, if I could get Nuke Islamofascist plates, I'd move to Florida. After the hurricane.
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Blog appeal
: The other night as we left PS122 after our blog panel, we saw one of the bloggers -- young, handsome in a serious and pensive way -- absolutely surrounded by beautiful young women hanging on his every sigh.
Blogroupies.
Damn. Why did they have blogs back in my day? Who'd have thought that punditry could get you laid?
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September 01, 2004
Blog booty call
: Jessica Cutler -- aka The Washingtonienne -- poses for Playboy.com (you have to pay and I'm not paying) and gives an interview (I just read the articles, you know). Playboy.com: What would people be most surprised to know about life inside the Beltway?
Jessica Cutler: People like to pretend that money and looks don't matter, but they do. It's supposed to be a big meritocracy, but people here are just as shallow as anywhere else. The thing about D.C. is it's not Miami or New York where there are all these hot people everywhere. I'm cute by New York standards, but when I came here, my stock just shot up fast. Also, people who have so much to lose can't help themselves.
Playboy.com: What advice would you give to someone starting a blog?
Jessica Cutler: With a blog, you can't expect your private life to be private anymore. You just never know. But, when you work on the Hill you find out the guy you've been sleeping with has told everyone in your office about it. So, what's the difference? It's writing on the bathroom wall.
Playboy.com: Are your blog and your novel going to be the final nails in the coffin for attractive young women being interns in Washington? What father would send his little girl to Capitol Hill?
Jessica Cutler: I don't think so. It might encourage more men to come to Washington, and there's nothing wrong with that. What, no Wonkette?
Flehsbot has a sneak peak. Not work safe. Not Capitol safe.
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Man in the gray flannel suit
: Didn't blog all day because I was buried writing memoes on a topic so horrific you don't want to know. Usually, I take a quick break to blog; clears the mind like mango ice on the tongue. But these docs put me in such a foul mood you should be glad I didn't take a break. Now I'm home. Ready to blog. Civliized again.
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BlogPR
: It's not just Denton getting good PR for blogs. It's Calacanis, too.
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Arrested
: I spent last night around the HQ of the protest movement as I came and went from the PS122 blog event; buzz all about.
I heard people talking excitedly about getting arrested. For some, it is the goal; it's part of the game; it's fun; it's a badge of honor. Not for others.
Julian Sanchez of Reason's convention blog was pacing back and forth at 10 m.p.h. getting updates on his cell about a bomb square downtown and he told me about covering a bunch of arrests at the World Trade Center, a game of he-said-she-said orderly-or-disorderly.
Arrest used to be about steel: steel handcuffs, steel bars. Now it's about plastic: plastic strips on your wrists, plastic netting to pen in the protestors until they're processed.
Fellow blogger Rossi almost got arrested last night -- she didn't want to, her other half did -- and she blogged about it immediately.
And I'm waiting to get the report from John Perry Barlow, who was supposed to be on the panel last night but who was off dancing as protest in midtown and was sending in SMS messages relayed to the crowd at PS122. Arrests were happening, he reported. We have no idea whether he danced or danced free or danced into plastic bars.
I certainly understand the arrest-as-protest thing. It was the metaphor of protest of my age, first for civil rights, then for Vietnam. I never got arrested (wimp!) but it happened all the time, all around.
But now, it seems like an odd means to an end. Does getting arrested help make the point? Well, it does if you're arrested by the enemy. But New York isn't the enemy or an agent of it. The New York cops are generally polite and friendly (and happy for all the overtime pay). New York is a Democratic town; this ain't Texas. Matt Welch said yesterday that it's a different matter in L.A., when you can't see the beetle-eyes of cops behind sunglasses, you fear arrest or worse. In New York, you fear a gruff grunt and plastic jail. Hell, the one person seriously injured so far in the protests was a cop.
So do you have to get arrested to make your point? I don't think so. Do the cops have to arrest to keep order? In many cases, no.
When I spoke with Jay Rosen last night, he said that too many people -- media people particularly -- are trying vainly to make 2004 into 1968, though there really are very few parallels; they are different times with different causes, a different experience.
If getting arrested isn't necessary to make your point or to get publicity or to make the power look by by turning the arresting agent into the bad guy, then is getting arrested really a form of protest nostalgia?
I said the other day that demonstrations themselves feel a bit anachronistic in this age when people have so many new ways to be heard.
The conventions are certainly anachronisitc in this age when all the decisions are already made and all the spin well spun.
So everything the city is going through this week is so oddly anachronistic ... EXCEPT the concrete and steel barriers everywhere, and the cops and soldiers with huge guns, and the checkpoints where we our bags are checked as if we were in Tel Aviv, and the huge trucks filled with sand and steel ramps meant to stop suicide trucks, and the Checkpoint Charlies on our streets, many of which are closed. That we have never seen before. That is new. And that is because the real enemy isn't the other side in a political argument or a mayor or a cop or a president. The real enemy is a band of sick terrorists who killed thousands of us only a mile south of here three years ago next week. That is the real war and there's nothing fun or a game about it.
So, oddly, the anachronisms of the convention and of the protests on the other side are oddly comforting. OK, we'll all play along and nominate the president who's already nominated and we'll wrap you in plastic and play along. It all looks like a game.
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August 31, 2004
Politics is conversation (or should be)
: Virginia Postrel nails it: The most remarkable thing about the speech wasn't its content but how it was delivered. Giuliani spoke fluidly, but in an utterly conversational way, as though he had no text. Instead of trying for old-style oratory, which works for few contemporary speakers, he gave a model 21st-century performance. This is the era of the Cluetrain. Conversations win.
. . .
Blather about to begin!
: I'm now at PS122 (looking rather out of place in the 'hood in my Conde protective coloration: last season's Hugo Boss green) ready for the blog panel. No wi-fi (you'd think there'd be a good socialist wi-fi thief on the block!); coming on thanks to Treo. I'm stoked on Chick Pea falafel and hummus. See you on the other side.
: It has been a blogacious day. I felt like the Jeffrey Katzenberg of citizens' media (he of the three breakfasts): One lunch with Rex Hammock, one with Matt Welch, coffee with Roger Simon (in the most secure Starbucks in the Western world, right next to the Convention).
. . .
From the front
: The Reason Hit & Run convention blog is great and I'm not just saying that because I'm seeing one of its bloggers and another on a panel tonight.
. . .
Dumb story du jour
: NPR send a reporter to the riverfront in Vietnam where Kerry served in his swift boat to discover that -- surprise, surprise, surprise -- the Vietnamese neither know nor care about the alleged controversy here. Somebody has too much time or money.
. . .
At the front
: I have to say I was shocked this morning as I came out of the PATH station at Herald Square, a block from Madison Square Garden, and saw the streets closed off with instant Checkpoint Charlies everywhere.
It's profoundly depressing seeing these changes brought on us by a few pieces of human slime.
And it's unsettling wondering why we don't need and have this level of security every day.
What is the right level of security for a thousand guys in funny hats and for all us New Yorkers?
: Time Warner staffers got disaster bags on their desks this week.
. . .
Can we win the war on terrorism (and Islamic fanaticism and tyranny)?
: Of course, we can't.
So I don't get the minor dustup over Bush telling Matt Lauer, when asked, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."
In all fairness to Bush, he's right and it's right to say so: We will never be able to rest from this war. We will be on guard always. We can work not only to make sure the rest of the world rejects these evil slime, we can also tear apart their nests and replace them with lands of freedom and democracy. But these slime are the cockroaches of humankind. They will hide and they will morph. We will prevail. We will survive. We will succeed. But we won't "win" against every terrorist and we should not fool ourselves to think that that day at the surrender table will ever come.
. . .
America as we know and love it is nearing its end
: Hostess, maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies, is facing insolvency.
What could be more American? Hell, I am Wonder Bread. And proud of it.
And when I was TV critic of TV Guide, I called shows "twinkie" so often, my editor made me stop.
Forget preserving landmarks and open space and the odd toad. We must preserve Wonder Bread and Twinkies!
. . .
News judgment
: Amazing that WNBC in New York did not run Rudy's speech last night. This is New York. This is Rudy. And he was great. The ABC affil had football but the CBS and Fox stations had Rudy.
Sorry to say that I wasn't wowed by McCain.
And otherwise, even Fox wasn't showing much because, well, conventions are boring and newsless.
: I do wish Rudy would get back on the public stage. He could be the man to fix the FBI; I've been pushing for that since the day he left office. He could make a helluva head of Homeland Security, though that's an even more thankless job.
: UPDATE: Rex Hammock puts it well on McCain: "John McCain is to Republicans what Bill Bradley is to Democrats. Bigger than life. Genuine greatness. But totally lacking the whole speech-making thing."
. . .
August 30, 2004
Rudy's running
: Guliani clearly had too much fun being before a cheering crowd again. He will run for office soon. I hope.
. . .
Cleaning up the mud
: Leonard Witt says this is one way to clean up campaign mud: The St. Pete Times withdraws the endorsement of a slinging candidate and endorses his opponent.
. . .
Cell phone, cell phone, in my purse, who's the fairest in this verse?
: SmartMobs says women in Britain use cell phones to check their hair, makeup, and -- it being Britain -- teeth. -- 20 percent of mobile users send snaps of themselves in new outfits to friends to see if they like them.
-- 18 per cent take pictures of shoes or clothes on display for the same reason.
-- 5 per cent take pictures of snappy dressers that they see on the high street to copy their style.
-- 15 per cent frequently pull out their camera-phones to photograph the sides and backs of their hair,
-- 10 per cent use their camera-phones as a mirror to check their make-up.
-- 4 per cent even resort to getting the phone out in the middle of a restaurant after dinner - to check their teeth.
. . .
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