Blogging Sells, and Sells Out: "But as long as blogs remained on the commercial fringes, the playing field at least was relatively level. Audience was largely a function of reputation � for the frequency or quality or ideological appeal of the blogger's posts. Costs were low, and few bloggers were trying to make a living at it, so money wasn't an issue. It may not have been egalitarian, but it wasn't strictly hierarchical, either."
though it is probably a bit premature, he will ultimately be correct. At this point it would take a lot to create a "tipping blog" from scratch. But then again, it took a long time for people to get to this point.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
New Democrat Network
Some really interesting ads--the most vibrant and direct that I have seen--that are geared toward the spanish speaking population. If only there was a movement that was trying to inspire as much hope among english speakers.
other things I would read today i I wasn't reading Habermas...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/magazine/26BLOGS.html?pagewanted=1 on the blogs covering the converntions and other recent events
http://harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html Naomi Klien on Iraq
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green?ca=ZylnpoS9tWz%2B384zl5EGISsgVsrssaIe5iIZmRrDHug%3D on "bush's brain"
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5240190 on bush assertions re: Iraq
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6098633/site/newsweek more screed on blogs
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary092704.asp resonding to the other two articles on blogs--all of these from Sully
Some really interesting ads--the most vibrant and direct that I have seen--that are geared toward the spanish speaking population. If only there was a movement that was trying to inspire as much hope among english speakers.
other things I would read today i I wasn't reading Habermas...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/magazine/26BLOGS.html?pagewanted=1 on the blogs covering the converntions and other recent events
http://harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html Naomi Klien on Iraq
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green?ca=ZylnpoS9tWz%2B384zl5EGISsgVsrssaIe5iIZmRrDHug%3D on "bush's brain"
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5240190 on bush assertions re: Iraq
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6098633/site/newsweek more screed on blogs
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary092704.asp resonding to the other two articles on blogs--all of these from Sully
Saturday, September 25, 2004
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible
Can't believe that they actually admitted they did it.
Can't believe that they actually admitted they did it.
New media era dawns in U.S. - 09/22/04
It is so strange that these articles are only happening now. This phenomenon has been happening for years and only now are the big media picking up on it. Nevertheless, what is so absent from any of these is any admission that this is still affecting only a small amount of people--and that the people it is affecting are predominantly the more wealthy members of the culture.
It is so strange that these articles are only happening now. This phenomenon has been happening for years and only now are the big media picking up on it. Nevertheless, what is so absent from any of these is any admission that this is still affecting only a small amount of people--and that the people it is affecting are predominantly the more wealthy members of the culture.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Read Thomas Hazlett article for class today and was a bit surprised at the tack it took. I tried very hard not to scoff at much of the first part which speaks about the only problem the FRC was assigned to solve was the problem of transmission overlap. Of course his minor argument is that prior to the court decision that invalidated the 1912 ruling that allowed the secretary of commerce to regulate the spectrum, Hoover (in that role) was pretty much letting the market take care of it and not having to use the big boot of government that often to keep things in order.
I was fairly certain that he was going to agree with Coase (1958?9) that the auction would have been the best approach to redistributing the wavelengths and that it would have been much more efficient to simply sell spots on the dial to the highest bidder, thus reducing the possibility for "rent seeking" behaviour on the part of networks or regulators. This is the party line and I expected him to follow it. Surprisingly, he was much more interested in looking critically at this moment and, except for his unwillnigness to admit the inequities of power among the "interest groups" involved (this is where McChesney is really useful in that he focuses on the civil society aspect, however ineffectual it actually was) Hazlett ultimately has a fairly rich understanding of what went on. It was really refreshing to see that it is possible to employ those methodological tools and still come up with an ideologically complex understanding of a social, political event.
And he also inadvertently indicates something that is often overlooked in this debate, it was always about the audience and the legitimacy that an institution builds for itself within that audience. He uses the analogy of Homesteading, which is really politically problematic when we think of the way that practice has been used (somewhere between squatting and genocide) but nonetheless, he is right that from that perspective handing out bandwidth to the major networks made the most sense. And, furthermore, both he and McChesney (in the chapters we read for today anyway) say that one of the fundamental weaknesses of the movement for non-profit media allocations is that those people didn't really have a product to present yet. It makes projects like Pacifica and Democracy Now! so much more important in our current day because they are doing what these eariler folks seem to have been unable to do--and what more people should be doing. It is so easy to bitch about all of this, to look at the problems and get pissed off. But if there are people out there--or if we believe at all that things on TV begin to create their own demand--who are interested in alternative ideas, then why not just use the model that exists instead of fighting tooth and nail to get someone else to pay for it. Ultimately that is what it will take. Except for the internet (and even this takes precious labor time as well as al sorts of energy) all of these forms of media production will cost money--to get it produced, distributed, etc. And if the goal is to reach as many people as possible, our ancestors have already built this great big megaphone for us to use. The bandwidth allocation is small potatoes compared to the problems of funding the adventure until you can get some public (i.e. popular) support for it. If we have faith in people to really be ready and willing to hear the ideas we think should be out there, then we should do something about it. There is obviously an issue to be resolved, and watching the FCC ownership rules to keep the consolidation from getting any more insane is imperative, but we should also make the media change ourselves rather than begging them to do it b/c we happen to be loud and, sometimes, smart.
I was fairly certain that he was going to agree with Coase (1958?9) that the auction would have been the best approach to redistributing the wavelengths and that it would have been much more efficient to simply sell spots on the dial to the highest bidder, thus reducing the possibility for "rent seeking" behaviour on the part of networks or regulators. This is the party line and I expected him to follow it. Surprisingly, he was much more interested in looking critically at this moment and, except for his unwillnigness to admit the inequities of power among the "interest groups" involved (this is where McChesney is really useful in that he focuses on the civil society aspect, however ineffectual it actually was) Hazlett ultimately has a fairly rich understanding of what went on. It was really refreshing to see that it is possible to employ those methodological tools and still come up with an ideologically complex understanding of a social, political event.
And he also inadvertently indicates something that is often overlooked in this debate, it was always about the audience and the legitimacy that an institution builds for itself within that audience. He uses the analogy of Homesteading, which is really politically problematic when we think of the way that practice has been used (somewhere between squatting and genocide) but nonetheless, he is right that from that perspective handing out bandwidth to the major networks made the most sense. And, furthermore, both he and McChesney (in the chapters we read for today anyway) say that one of the fundamental weaknesses of the movement for non-profit media allocations is that those people didn't really have a product to present yet. It makes projects like Pacifica and Democracy Now! so much more important in our current day because they are doing what these eariler folks seem to have been unable to do--and what more people should be doing. It is so easy to bitch about all of this, to look at the problems and get pissed off. But if there are people out there--or if we believe at all that things on TV begin to create their own demand--who are interested in alternative ideas, then why not just use the model that exists instead of fighting tooth and nail to get someone else to pay for it. Ultimately that is what it will take. Except for the internet (and even this takes precious labor time as well as al sorts of energy) all of these forms of media production will cost money--to get it produced, distributed, etc. And if the goal is to reach as many people as possible, our ancestors have already built this great big megaphone for us to use. The bandwidth allocation is small potatoes compared to the problems of funding the adventure until you can get some public (i.e. popular) support for it. If we have faith in people to really be ready and willing to hear the ideas we think should be out there, then we should do something about it. There is obviously an issue to be resolved, and watching the FCC ownership rules to keep the consolidation from getting any more insane is imperative, but we should also make the media change ourselves rather than begging them to do it b/c we happen to be loud and, sometimes, smart.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Monday, September 13, 2004
Friday, September 10, 2004
AlterNet: DrugReporter: 'Crack Babies' Talk Back
This is a somewhat groundbreaking story I think. I have read about the Crack baby myth, but usually I take it with a grain of salt because the critics seem to be so angry at the Reagan administration for the drug policies that came out of this era. The stories of these kids--most of which would probably be about my sister's age now--are important for us to hear at this point when the spectacle of the next horrifying media phenomenon is just around the corner. The only problem is that this article doesn't connect this with the larger political scene and the mandatory drug sentences set for crack which have caused the prison population to explode--and, very likely, caused almost as much family grief as the drugs did in the first place. Odds that the mass media will really pick up on this story: slim
This is a somewhat groundbreaking story I think. I have read about the Crack baby myth, but usually I take it with a grain of salt because the critics seem to be so angry at the Reagan administration for the drug policies that came out of this era. The stories of these kids--most of which would probably be about my sister's age now--are important for us to hear at this point when the spectacle of the next horrifying media phenomenon is just around the corner. The only problem is that this article doesn't connect this with the larger political scene and the mandatory drug sentences set for crack which have caused the prison population to explode--and, very likely, caused almost as much family grief as the drugs did in the first place. Odds that the mass media will really pick up on this story: slim
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Welcome to anncoulter.com!: "Which candidate will best protect America from terrorist attack? Hint: It's not the guy whose running mate (sounding so much like Sean Hayes from 'Will and Grace' it was eerie) said their message to the terrorists was: 'We will destroy youuuuuuu!' "
yet another example of Ann Coulter and the right using some thinly veiled homophobia to criticize the Democrats. It's all just so fascist I don't know how they get away with it. I guess when you are making a joke it's okay to talk that way--you can take a joke, can't you [wuss]? It's just so tremendous to have bullies in charge of the most powerful nation in the world. I'm sure everyone sleeps better knowing that. I sure do.
yet another example of Ann Coulter and the right using some thinly veiled homophobia to criticize the Democrats. It's all just so fascist I don't know how they get away with it. I guess when you are making a joke it's okay to talk that way--you can take a joke, can't you [wuss]? It's just so tremendous to have bullies in charge of the most powerful nation in the world. I'm sure everyone sleeps better knowing that. I sure do.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Friday, September 03, 2004
French Muslims take off scarves
Like women in Iran in the early 1980s who put them on as a statement in defiance to the US feminists telling them to take them off, French Muslims are taking off their scarves in solidarity with their countrymen--in other words, where there might have been more internal protests about the scarves, as there were last spring, the hostage situation actually kept the muslims in france from doing what they might otherwise have done. People really are unpredictable.
Like women in Iran in the early 1980s who put them on as a statement in defiance to the US feminists telling them to take them off, French Muslims are taking off their scarves in solidarity with their countrymen--in other words, where there might have been more internal protests about the scarves, as there were last spring, the hostage situation actually kept the muslims in france from doing what they might otherwise have done. People really are unpredictable.
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | A terrible lesson from a classroom in Beslan:
"Putin pins the blame for the escalating crisis, perhaps the gravest of his presidency, not on home-grown Chechen fighters but, primarily, on an international Islamist conspiracy linked to al-Qaida.
The evidence for his contention is thin and often contradictory. But one thing is undoubtedly true. Since plunging recklessly back into Chechnya in 1994, Putin, his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, and the once proud Red Army have caused such untold misery, such rank injustice, such fury and despair that, like the Americans in Iraq, they created a breeding ground and magnet for the religious extremists they struggle to extirpate. "
An interesting analogy. The fact that both Russia and Israel have suffered some severe terrorist attacks in recent weeks has been raised as evidence that their harsh methods--reminescent of the premptive war of the 2002 strategic doctrine of the US--are actually working against the ultimate goal of ending terrorism in those areas. On the other hand, Andrew Sullivan seems hopeful that the French traitors of the Iraq war will finally be brought into the fold now that two of their journalists have been taken captive. He is hoping that the preemptive front will expand and France will stop being a tool for the Jihadists to use against "us".
As compelling as Sullivan's take is--and as sinister as the dispatch is from these would be terrorists--the difference is that, as usual, he is only considering this from a political and ideological level, ignoring completely the material realities. Ideology isn't something people put on like their socks. It is something that only becomes attractive when it seems to explain where you are. If Al Queda operatives are active in Chechnya the only way that their extremism is able to take hold in such a foreign land is that there is the "fury and despair" that was there first. it is much more neat and pat and easy to dismiss as lunacy and criminality when one can assume that everything else is equal except for the way people interpret the world; if these rebels would just sit down and read the Bible, think about Adam Smith, and have faith that someday they'll get a leg up, well they'd just be as happy as clams because, other than murder and repression by an occupying army, what do they really have to complain about?
The French journalist issue actually seems to show more how fragmented this movement that is supposedly the front united against us. We don't really know anything about the people who are holding these journalists (nor do we really about the people in the school--of whom, evidently, over 100 are now dead, including children, thanks, in part to the blunt instrument of "storming the castle" that the Russians used: disgusting. A replay of their use of what turned out to be lethal gas in the theatre two years ago. Gosh if the Russians keep using that doctrine of overwhelming force that is supposed to work so well in dealing with terrorists, you'd think the terrorists woudl have stopped by now. Maybe there is actually something that happens before and after the terrorism that is a clue?) The problem is that, like communism before it, the ideas that we are up against don't have to be centrally dictated. These ideas begin to take hold in areas where there is little else to give people hope. This doesn't excuse their actions, but if we ignore these ideas as a possible explainations and neglect to consider new solutions--or additional solutions--then we have no hope of ever setting this unbalanced world back on its axis.
I am beginning to think that our leaders have figured out the same thing that third world leaders have been exploiting for a long time: that as unsightly as these terrorists are, they are very useful in centralizing control domestically. We have little hope for stability if instability is meant to guarantee the position of those in power. If we are supposed to keep the same party just because we are afraid to do otherwise, that doesn't give us much hope for change in the national leadership or even in the world at large.
It also points to the biggest problem I have with all of these people in charge right now: they really lack imagination. For some reason, I am supposed to believe that the only two options we have are capitalism and communism (or Giddens' "third way" which is basically capitalism but with a happy face.) Isn't that what people were told 100 years ago? Have we really made so little progress that we have nothing better to offer? I don't agree with all the things that are said at venues like the World Social Forum, but I do agree that the new mantra for the 21st century has to be "Amother World is Possible." Bush and the Republicans want us to believe that political liberty is the only thing that has made America what it is today. Perhaps this is why they also seem to believe that the only thing driving our enemies is ideas, bad ideas. We don't need to change anything in the material distribution: we just need to reiterate some different ideas. We don't need to face any material realities or confront hard questions about how much of Iraq our corporations should own: all they need is "liberty." And, like everything else, you don't need to present any evidence: if you say it, it is so. Orwellian era of Performative Politics has arrived in full and people seem to be eating it up.
"Putin pins the blame for the escalating crisis, perhaps the gravest of his presidency, not on home-grown Chechen fighters but, primarily, on an international Islamist conspiracy linked to al-Qaida.
The evidence for his contention is thin and often contradictory. But one thing is undoubtedly true. Since plunging recklessly back into Chechnya in 1994, Putin, his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, and the once proud Red Army have caused such untold misery, such rank injustice, such fury and despair that, like the Americans in Iraq, they created a breeding ground and magnet for the religious extremists they struggle to extirpate. "
An interesting analogy. The fact that both Russia and Israel have suffered some severe terrorist attacks in recent weeks has been raised as evidence that their harsh methods--reminescent of the premptive war of the 2002 strategic doctrine of the US--are actually working against the ultimate goal of ending terrorism in those areas. On the other hand, Andrew Sullivan seems hopeful that the French traitors of the Iraq war will finally be brought into the fold now that two of their journalists have been taken captive. He is hoping that the preemptive front will expand and France will stop being a tool for the Jihadists to use against "us".
As compelling as Sullivan's take is--and as sinister as the dispatch is from these would be terrorists--the difference is that, as usual, he is only considering this from a political and ideological level, ignoring completely the material realities. Ideology isn't something people put on like their socks. It is something that only becomes attractive when it seems to explain where you are. If Al Queda operatives are active in Chechnya the only way that their extremism is able to take hold in such a foreign land is that there is the "fury and despair" that was there first. it is much more neat and pat and easy to dismiss as lunacy and criminality when one can assume that everything else is equal except for the way people interpret the world; if these rebels would just sit down and read the Bible, think about Adam Smith, and have faith that someday they'll get a leg up, well they'd just be as happy as clams because, other than murder and repression by an occupying army, what do they really have to complain about?
The French journalist issue actually seems to show more how fragmented this movement that is supposedly the front united against us. We don't really know anything about the people who are holding these journalists (nor do we really about the people in the school--of whom, evidently, over 100 are now dead, including children, thanks, in part to the blunt instrument of "storming the castle" that the Russians used: disgusting. A replay of their use of what turned out to be lethal gas in the theatre two years ago. Gosh if the Russians keep using that doctrine of overwhelming force that is supposed to work so well in dealing with terrorists, you'd think the terrorists woudl have stopped by now. Maybe there is actually something that happens before and after the terrorism that is a clue?) The problem is that, like communism before it, the ideas that we are up against don't have to be centrally dictated. These ideas begin to take hold in areas where there is little else to give people hope. This doesn't excuse their actions, but if we ignore these ideas as a possible explainations and neglect to consider new solutions--or additional solutions--then we have no hope of ever setting this unbalanced world back on its axis.
I am beginning to think that our leaders have figured out the same thing that third world leaders have been exploiting for a long time: that as unsightly as these terrorists are, they are very useful in centralizing control domestically. We have little hope for stability if instability is meant to guarantee the position of those in power. If we are supposed to keep the same party just because we are afraid to do otherwise, that doesn't give us much hope for change in the national leadership or even in the world at large.
It also points to the biggest problem I have with all of these people in charge right now: they really lack imagination. For some reason, I am supposed to believe that the only two options we have are capitalism and communism (or Giddens' "third way" which is basically capitalism but with a happy face.) Isn't that what people were told 100 years ago? Have we really made so little progress that we have nothing better to offer? I don't agree with all the things that are said at venues like the World Social Forum, but I do agree that the new mantra for the 21st century has to be "Amother World is Possible." Bush and the Republicans want us to believe that political liberty is the only thing that has made America what it is today. Perhaps this is why they also seem to believe that the only thing driving our enemies is ideas, bad ideas. We don't need to change anything in the material distribution: we just need to reiterate some different ideas. We don't need to face any material realities or confront hard questions about how much of Iraq our corporations should own: all they need is "liberty." And, like everything else, you don't need to present any evidence: if you say it, it is so. Orwellian era of Performative Politics has arrived in full and people seem to be eating it up.
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