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July 12, 2002
I spoke with him a couple of hours ago (around 6pm EDT) and he sounded chipper. We’d never talked by phone before. Not surprisingly, he’s a funny guy; he’s what 30 years ago hippier people than I would have called “a trip.”
The problem is some type of intestinal infection and he should be going home on Sunday.
Whew! Don’t do that to us, Marek!
W. David Stephenson, with whom I wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald about why the Homeland Security page sucks, has two followups:
1. Adam Gaffin has cited it in his NetworkWorld Fusion blog. Adam points us all to the Homeland Security Monitor, a resource on security issues.
2. David points us to Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism because, unlike the Homeland page, it actually provides useful information and ways to contact the group. It’s a start, anyway.
Jeneane points us to Ann‘s blog. Marek is in the hospital. Something is wrong with his stomach. Apparently, no one knows what yet.
Marek’s voice is powerful, beautiful and truly unique. And treasured.
Those of us who don’t believe in the power of prayer will have to fall back on the old standards: superstition and hope.
[For an introduction to Marek, read Doc‘s blog. Thanks, Doc, for putting it so well.]
Because I am still on The World’s Slowest Net Connection – I’m actually picking up CompuServe reruns from 1987 – I have not been able to listen to the following link, but I trust its provenance: an email from RageBoy. I reproduce it here in its entirety:
http://www.rageboy.com/blogger.html
RB leaves late-nite voicemail for Gary Turner. Ricky don’t lose
that number. Hear one of the World’s Top-50 Business Thinkers say
“fuck” a lot, propose a massive panty raid on Blog Sisters, and
explain how blogging is the necessary and inevitable precursor to
Systemic Ass-Yodeling & Wide-Area Telephony (SAY-WAT). Rare mutant
RageBoy image appears courtesy AP Wirephoto archives.
July 11, 2002
According to the NY Times: In a White House ceremony today, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, to a dozen prominent people, including:
Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the greatest force for democracy since the privately-owned newspaper and the curtains that surround voting booths.
Lawrence Lessig for fighting to return copyright protection to its original role: to maximize the sharing of ideas and works of creativity.
The Linux community for building something bigger than itself for others, and for doing more to protect the open market than the FTC has done.
Shawn Fanning for enabling 70 million people to do a de facto redefinition of the verb “to own.”
Google for making it possible to find shit.
Mnftiu for being funny just by telling the truth (edging out TheOnion).
We can dream, can’t we?
David Reed is no fool so if he’s excited — positively — about possible changes to the FCC’s policy on licensing spectrum, then so am I. His blog entry has links to lots of comments filed with the FCC, including his own. (Whether the FCC listens to any of the sensible comments is a different matter.)
A passing comment from Dan Bricklin at a conference last week puts the issue in perspective. When someone commented on the fact that so many technologies use the 2.4gH stretch of spectrum, he muttered: “It’s unlicensed, which is why the innovation happens there.”
David Stephenson, with whom I wrote an op-ed piece for the Miami Herald a couple of days ago pointing out how stupid the Homeland Security web page is, writes with an update:
We heard your complaints, America, and took action. We hope you enjoy
this new, larger picture of me on the Homeland Security web site.
-Shrub
BTW, apparently the White House has invested in a printer capable of turning out backdrops for Presidential Events with the Message of the Day emblazoned on it: Yesterday “Corporate Responsiblity,” today “Protecting the Homeland”, tomorrow “I Am Not (technically) a Crook.”
July 10, 2002
Jeff Gates writes in response to my comments about trying to de-grass our front lawn:
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley of LA and now reside in an almost forest of trees in the burbs of DC. It takes me a couple of hours to mow my lawn (if you could call it that since we don’t get a lot of sunlight in the summer). I wanted to leave a “rectangle” of grass unmowed for the entire season to see what it would look like and how much it would grow but my wife wasn’t too sure about my “public art piece.” Oh, and I thought the definition of a “weed” was simply an unwanted plant (I always liked that). What I think is a weed, someone else could think is a beautiful flower (I know my children LOVE dandelions).
I really like the idea. Giving corners to wildness. Maybe next year.
If CEOs ought to be held responsible if the financial disclosure statements they sign are wrong, then are you saying that Ken Lay’s excuse that he was misled by other managers ought not to hold and that Kenny Boy ought to do hard time?
Are you confident that no CEO could be misled by crooked accountants or an errant CFO in any part of her or his business? For example, might a “lawyer’s mistake” result in a member of the board of directors filing notice eight months late of a major stock transaction that has the appearance of insider trading? Ought the Board Member do hard time?
No, Bush is once again over-simplifying vastly complex problems so he can use his Blame-and-Punish strategy to give us the delusion that they’re under control. Terrorist attack? Pin it on one evil-doer so we have someone to track down rather than addressing the complexities that give rise to terrorism. Widespread corruption in business due to the systemic flaws in the way our stock market works? Pin it on CEOs and threaten to jail them. Failing educational system? Reduce the problem to what can be diagnosed by federal, standardized tests … and then punish the schools that need the most help.
The problem is that even if we get rid of the evil-doers, we will still have a world in which the next evil-doer will seem to make sense to a whole bunch of people.
Some nice puns:
Slate’s “Today’s Papers” has the headline (written by Eric Umansky, one assumes): “Bush Whacks, Wall Street Wanes.” And Hal Blakely’s weekly W newsletter has the subject line “W Is Taking Stock.”
July 9, 2002
Really interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
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