Atom Feed
May 30, 2009
Hamid Tehrani at GlobalVoices posts about how Iranian candidates for the presidency are using YouTube…including controversies about jokes and ad hoc footage…
May 23, 2009
Ok, so the headline is misleading. But the idea is very cool. BoldProgressives.org is asking us to contribute a dollar a day, until they raise $200,000, unless Norman Coleman first concedes that he lost to Al Franken. If Norm doesn’t, then BoldProgressives will donate the money to a progressive cause in Coleman’s name. So, Coleman will know the longer he stays in, the more money he’s raising for progressive causes.
May 22, 2009
After reading Chuck Norris’ two columns against hate crimes legislation (1 2) —the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act…could not only criminalize opinions (an unconstitutional act) but also provide elevated protection to pedophiles” — and Media Matters’ response, I think it’s time for a new round of Chuck Norris jokes:
Chuck Norris can crush facts with his bare opinions.
Chuck Norris doesn’t have to leap to conclusions. He just sits there and conclusions leap to him.
Chuck Norris thinks homosexuality is a choice, but his oiled, bare chest isn’t so sure.
You think those jokes are lame? Me too. But that’s why Chuck Norris gave us comment sections…
May 17, 2009
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.
Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.
“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”
This argument counters the “No one’s hurt by it” defense of same sex marriage. The only problem is that Steele’s argument is also exactly an argument against “opposite marriage.”
Yeah, that’ll catch on, Republicans!
May 16, 2009
The Whitehouse.gov blog continues to improve, by which I mean it’s getting less like the glass-topped version of White House press releases. But it’s missing a big opportunity by keeping the blog posts anonymous.
The White House bloggers seem quite aware that a press release isn’t a post and are trying to create a difference between the two. For instance, the blogger begins the post on President Obama’s speech on credit card reform with a friendly paragraph about the citizen who introduced him. It’s not much and it’s still directly tied to the President’s remarks, but that paragraph doesn’t read like a press release or like a speech. And, that post ends with the blogger’s evaluation of the President’s proposal: “Long overdue.” That last phrase, expressing some personal enthusiasm, is uncalled for, and thus is refreshing, for blogging is a medium for the uncalled and the uncalled-for. (Which is why I love it.)
Still, it’s hard to see how the posts can blow past this minimal level of bloggishness…unless and until the bloggers start signing them.
The problem, I believe, is that the bloggers feel (and are made to feel) the awful weight of speaking for the White House. Their posts come straight from the offices behind the long lawn and the pillared portico. In some weird, ineffable way, they represent the building, its inhabitants, and its policies, just as press releases do. Press releases have authority because they’re not an individual expression. They have authority because they are unsigned and thus speak for the institution itself. Blog posts come from the same building, and, if they’re unsigned, maybe they’re supposed to have similar authority, except written in a slangier style. So, we don’t yet know exactly what to make of these unsigned posts. And neither do the bloggers, I think. It’s too new and it’s too weird.
But, if the bloggers signed their posts, it would instantly become clear that bloggers are not speaking for the institution of the White House the way press releases do. We would have something — the bloggers — that stands between the posts and the awesomeness of the White House. That would create just enough room for the bloggers to express something other than the Official View. They would be freed to make the White House blog far more interesting, relevant, human, and central to the Administration’s mission than even the most neatly typed press releases ever could be.
Already most of the bloggiest posts at Whitehouse.gov come from guest bloggers who are named and identified by their position. They feel free-er to speak for themselves and as themselves, in their own voice. Now, I don’t expect the official White House bloggers to speak for themselves exactly. They are partisans and employees; they work for the White House because they love President Obama. But, if they signed their names, they could speak more as themselves.
This might let them do more of what the White House blog needs to do, in my opinion. For example, I’d like to read a White House blogger explaining the President’s decision to try some Guantanamo prisoners using the military tribunals President Bush created. White House communications officials probably consider it bad politics to acknowledge the controversy by issuing a defense. But bloggers write about what’s interesting, and hearing a spirited, partisan justification would be helpful, and encouraging. I personally think that Pres. Obama probably has good reasons for his decision in this matter, but the “good politics” of official communications are too timid. I want to hear a blogger on the topic. And I would love to learn to go to the White House blog first on questions such as this. And isn’t that where the White House would like me first to go?
Bloggers with names are the best way to interrupt the direct circuit from politics to official public expression. That would put people in the middle…which is exactly where we want them.
Posted in slightly improved form at HuffingtonPost and TechPresident.
May 10, 2009
Obama’s comedy routine at the White house Corrrespondents’ Dinner was both funnier and edgier than I would have expected. Oh, some jokes were pure Johnny Carson, (“How about that Joe Biden? I wouldn’t say he’s talkative, but he’s personally responsible for the Amtrak Quiet Car now having armed conductors. Heyo!”), but some had real bite. Fun.
Wanda Sykes was funny, too, although she did go over the line a couple of times, imo. The Limbaugh jokes in particular were just mean. But I’d rather have the institutionalized dinner go over the line than say so far below it. (See here, starting 2 minutes in. And watch the audience cutaways.)
The whole ritual is as close as we get to giving our president a court jester to keep him humble. But the expectation that the president is going to do stand-up, well, it’s a tad bizarre. And I like it.
April 30, 2009
WorldNetDaily’s article about Cass Sunstein is laughably wrong and scarily partisan. Now that Obama has nominated Sunstein to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the anonymous article in WND presents suggestions and ideas in Sunstein’s nuanced and clear-eyed works as if Sunstein were putting them forward as federal policy. The weirdest is Sunstein’s thought that it’d be useful if software could tell you that a message you’re about to send is a flame, and then keep you from pressing the send button hastily. In the hands of WND, this becomes Sunstein using the power of the federal government to mandate that it read all emails and block ones it doesn’t like.
I disagree with Sunstein on many points. In particular, Sunstein famously worries that the Internet is a causing us to harden our hearts and minds, enabling us to hear only from people with whom we agree. As an overall characterization, I think that misses too much else of what the Net is doing…even as I agree that the Net undoubtedly has that effect, too. I disagree with him, but I’m thrilled to have him in the Internet conversation. At the very least, his concern should remind us that the good things that the Net does and can do won’t happen automatically; we need to be vigilant and imaginative. At the most, he’s right and we need to heed him.
So, given that a concern about polarization has become the best-known piece of Sunstein’s powerful writings, the WorldNetDaily’s polarizing article can this morning reassure us that unintended irony remains the strongest force in the universe.
[Later that day: Julian Sanchez does a great job tracking down the quotes ‘n’ context (AKA The Truth.]
April 29, 2009
Imagine if you will — and I know for some minority of you it will be a moment of pleasure, so please enjoy — that we are watching the pundits discuss and evaluate the first 100 days of the McCain-Palin administration…
[Minutes later] Jeremy Dibbell just pointed me to a Walter Shapiro article on just this hypothetical.
April 20, 2009
Adrienne Redd uses her research into the expectations of nation-states since WWII to analyze the language in Obama’s town hall talk in Strasbourg a couple of weeks ago. She finds evidence of an understanding that the fate of sovereign nations are nonetheless intertwined…
April 16, 2009
Pew Internet has a new report out about the role of the Internet in the recent presidential campaign. It confirms that more than half of us went online for info, and many of us were quite active. In fact, here’s one nugget from the report:
Due to demographic differences between the two parties, McCain voters were actually more likely than Obama voters to go online in the first place. However, online Obama supporters were generally more engaged in the online political process than online McCain supporters. Among internet users, Obama voters were more likely to share online political content with others, sign up for updates about the election, donate money to a candidate online, set up political news alerts and sign up online for volunteer activities related to the campaign. Online Obama voters were also out in front when it came to posting their own original political content online–26% of wired Obama voters did this, compared with 15% of online McCain supporters.
Lots of fodder for thought in this survey…
Joho the Blog uses WordPress blogging software.
Thank you, WordPress!
