I Brake for Little People
Courtesy of The Smoking Gun, I bequeath unto you the funniest / most unfortunate mugshot ever:
Courtesy of The Smoking Gun, I bequeath unto you the funniest / most unfortunate mugshot ever:
Editorial note: Apologies for those who are getting quasi-spam every time I update this here lil' journal. I apparently can't turn this off on my end. You might be able to turn off these notices within your "Control Panel". Thanks for your forebearance.
Now, yell at Friendster! Bad Friendster!
I awoke this morning to news, sadly all too familiar: (Insert National Icon) is falling down. Perhaps not London Bridge, but the Tube for certain. The red of the double-deckers takes new form as the tops are exlpoded off, into bits large and small, man and machine.
As London is wracked with terror, I can't help but wonder where We are in this era of extremism. More than I feel saddened and sympathetic -- I do, for I was in NYC in the time before, during and after 9/11 -- I register a sinking feeling. I suspect that we are not on the right path, that we're over-extended in all the wrong ways.
I don't wish to condemn anyone beyond the culprits today. But it is, as a result of these horrendous circumstances, necessary to ask of ourselves: "What are we doing?"
The stiff assurance from the G8 leaders is less than cold comfort; it's the expected headline fluff that takes the place of real news -- news from the people. Around London, as the world, words, pictures and video from real people on the scene proliferate: Raw, unfettered, unedited news spreads via the Internet. To be sure, there will be this and that falsehood (or truth). But that will all be worked out and understood in less time than you can say "via Satellite". The major media outlets slog forth, while stories aplenty are already there for the reading. Please read Jeff Jarvis's post from this morning, especially the comments that point to many more sources. (Sure, there may be a network with the "news you trust". But is it the news you need? And in that way?)
Being a part of the media (granted, not of the august newspaper variety), it is hardly difficult to feel such a disconnect between what is heard via mouthpiece, and what is heard via source. The American media is especially frightful in this regard, either reiterating talking talking points verbatim or handing out polarizing snippets of "news" so thoroughly without context.
And that's perhaps the point: Where is the context? Where is the dialogue? After all, are we not seeking progress? Do we not seek resolution, whether in action to defend the innocent or isolate the guilty, or both simultaneously? And how exactly are we doing this?
I fear that these are the questions we (the US) should ask first, ask of ourselves, as the world's "hyper-power" even if we don't agree that we are as such. Whether its our soldiers in the battlefield or commuters going about their lives, do we not owe it to ourselves to discuss in simple, honest terms the wheres and whytofores of our circumstance?
To the British: seek whatever support you need and you shall find it
To the Media: serve the public interest and no one else
To the G8, and all future leaders: represent not yourselves, inspire commonality and enjoin politics of polarity
I do pretend to be neither pious Chritian nor theologian, but these words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians sing out to me this morning:
"Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are all members of one another.... Put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander and all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.... Be subject to one another...."
Sometimes, violence is funny. Particularly when its about the violent. Tiger Beat cover-boy Adam McKay lends a prime example of this, notably in his recent Huffington Post, um, post:
"Dick Durbin had a hard time with it recently when he expressed outrage over the basically above board torture that our government has been conducting in Gauntanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. This torture essentially makes the Geneva Convention null and void. This makes me so mad I want to kick Santa Claus in the nuts."
Well, maybe that's not funny to you (you toy-making faggot elf). Seriously, though, is all decency lost? Or is that irony?
I work for RAZOR magazine, which, for those who don't know, is an indie men's lifestyle publication that's neither a "laddie" nor an aging hipster review. My charge is running the newly formed online division.
I'm excited to say (ie brog, bragging via blog) that our new redesign is going to be up this week. We'll do a soft / rolling launch over the course of the month. Still, the site will be radically different on many levels.
For starters, we'll be the first fully blog-enabled media property on the Web. We're not half-assing this approach, so don't look for a blog section. And I won't lie, this is a bold, grand experiment. My good friend and long-time colleague, Gordon Gould, would quote Virgil and say, "Fortune favors the bold". I hope so. Gordon is the brains behind Blogsmith, the tech sister company to Jason's Weblogsinc and the "secret sauce" of the coming RAZOR.
As a follow up on that, we're deeply integrating blogging into a media-genic framework. Think: a working blog that doesn't look like a blog. Hey, people in the meat of the bell-curve are smart enough. I think that there's room for looking sleek and still functioning on a level that deeply includes our audience / readership / users / etc.
From there, we get into many business issues that are probably way too boring for this here blog. And if the purpose of Friendster is to attract friends... Well, you get the idea.
It's a big deal, and certainly something that will be developing over the coming months. So, be a pal, go take a look later this week, and drop me a line at michael(at)razormagazine(dot)com
This is a test of the emergency democratic folksonomy system. This is only a test. (OK, so it's just a blog.) Still, if it were a real emergency, you would hear of it via someone with a redonky rating on Technorati.
I have no clue how this will play out, what I'll blog about or whatever, but it's a start of something. And oh-so-appropriate on this, our nation's birthday. (My main man Patrick would say "birfday", God bless 'im.)
Happy 229, USA. Let's hope for more, happier.