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May 12, 2005
A work colleague of mine from way back, J. Fox Garrison, has written P.S. Julia, the story of her life after a massive brain hemorrhage and stroke. So far I’ve only read the sample chapter (pdf), but I wasn’t expecting to laugh quite so much. I look forward to reading the rest. [Technorati tag: stroke]
The Boston Phoenix reports on a new poll that shows that with 5,000 gay marriages in the past year, 48% of the 600 poll respondents say that gay marriage has had no impact on the quality of life in the Commonwealth…and 36% said life has gotten better. Support for the legalization of gay marriage has gone up from 59% last year to 62% now.
The issue comes up for popular vote in 2006 when we’ll have the chance to amend the constitution to ban gay marriages and permit civil unions. At this point, unless gay marriage is discovered to cause mad cow disease, it’s looking like Massachusetts may be able to change its motto to “Where love dares speak its name.” [Technorati tags: gay marriage massachusetts]
May 11, 2005
BBC eases rules on news feed use
The BBC has opened up its content more so that people can use news stories and headlines on their own sites via RSS.
Revised licence terms mean other sites can integrate RSS feeds from the BBC without offline contract negotiations, as was previously the case.
From the BBC site. Go, Beeb!
I did enjoy, however, the caption under the photo illustrating the story. The photo shows a woman with her laptop in a cafe. The caption: “People like to get information when they want and wherever they are.” It might as well have read, “People enjoy warm beverages” or “Pretty women are often shown in photos.” [Technorati tag: bbc]
We wake up in caves
and evolve over coffee.
I seem to be in a doggerel mood this week… [Technorati tag: poetry]
Global Voices aggregates Iranian bloggers blogging a meeting with a reformist presidential candidate who writes his own Persian blog. This is pretty fascinating. Check Adventures of Mr. Behi (in English). Omid Memarian (Iranian Prospect) writes that it was the most open candidate meeting ever, perhaps an example of the openness of the Net affecting the openness of the real world.
Global Voices’ daily roundup also points to a powerful, provocative piece by Martin Mbugua Kimani (African Bullets & Honey) called “Confessions of a Middle Class Kenyan” (with comments here).
May 10, 2005
Michael O’Connor Clarke has started up his blog about PR again. Yay! The new entry is the first in a series called “The Seven Deadly Agency Types.”
And on the topic of PR blogs, I checked in with Richard Edelman‘s only to find out that last week he blogged a conversation he and I had. That’d be perfectly ok, of course, even if (disclosure statement!) I weren’t on retainer to Edelman PR, but I feel bad that I fled the country immediately afterwards and thus missed the interesting discussion of the post.
I argued that PR needs to get out of the way, connecting passionate clients with the public. That’s always been what the best PR people do: They find the right person in the organization for you to be speaking with, which is not necessarily someone in marketing. Richard puts forward other ethical and valuable roles for PR agencies, and I do appreciate the role a PR agency can play in actively pulling together interested parties, and sometimes even as a content creator.
I like Richard’s phrase that PR is about building public relationships. I continue to believe that in most cases that relationship should be between the client and the public. If the PR agency is in the middle, it will usually be assumed that that’s because the client can’t be trusted to speak for itself. That’s one reason why blogs are so important: They are public relationships.
Jonathan Peterson points out the irony of Hillary Rosen chewing out Steve Jobs for the iPod’s DRM. He also really really doesn’t like the new Huffington blog in which Rosen’s piece appears. I actually do like the blog. I wouldn’t want all blogs to be like that, but since blogs will fill every available niche, I’m enough of a celebrity whore to want to read blogs by Ellen DeGeneres, Jon Cusack, Quincy Jones, etc. I would never point to it as an example of what blogging is about, but hearing celebs talk in their own voices is, arguably, a useful reminder that we all put on our blogs one leg at a time, so to speak. [Technorati tags: huffington drm]
A bad portent for the new Star Wars episode: Even in a carefully posed cover photo for Premiere magazine, Hayden Christensen looks like a kid standing on line dressed up as Darth Vader:
The problem is that George Lucas has not made a single movie that wasn’t composed of stock characters. When he wants a movie to be more than a Saturday afternoon diversion — for example, when he starts to believe The Force is more than a plot device, that he’s exploring deep themes of good and evil, or that he can write a love scene — he goes off the rails. He can direct large action scenes, and in every movie there’s been one or two special effects that have been imaginative and cool — jumping to light speed, those gunner bots that transform from rolling balls — but he is so unaware that he’s dealing in stereotypes that he can base an entire movie around Ewoks or dive head first into racism.
All the variables have been explored. He’s got a budget big enough to make the movie he wants. He has total mastery of digital effects — which he pioneered, and hats off to him for doing so — so he can make anything happen that he imagines. He’s got a built-in audience so he could try experimenting. He has fantastic actors, including Hayden Christensen. So why have his movies marched steadily downhill? There’s only one variable left…
Having said that, I expect the new one to be better than the previous two. And no matter how bad it is, I’ll go see it. But I will not wear my JarJar outfit. I’ve learned my lesson. [Technorati tags: StarWars GeorgeLucas]
May 9, 2005
Strap yourself into your Envy Chair and take a look at this handful of photos from Capri…
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