The failure of a U.S. federal judge to stop wikileaks.org reminds us that the democratization of communication and information channels are powerful tools in the struggle for human freedom.
Information Democracy
The democratization of communication and information channels provides as much promise as threat to the way politics and business is done.
Romanian politicans beware! Shady managers and company owners too. There’s terrabytes and terrabytes of disk space waiting for leaking files and documents about you on wikileaks.org. And there’s no way to stop this juggernaut that exposes all the corruption and lies that come into its great path. Whatcha gonna do?
Yesterday, I attended the second hearing in our divorce proceedings. Again, she did not show up for the hearing. Anyway, she gets everything- so to speak. There was no necessity for any kind of court room drama.
It is almost done.
Like evil waiting upon the results, ready to count the casualties and measure the precise pitch and degree of devastation, confusion and chaos.
And when this evil is accomplished, still divorce remains a difficulty, an enigma and a paradox to me and my highest hopes. The future just hangs there.
I wait for answers. Patience now…
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It feels like evil. Perhaps, because it may be, in fact, evil. All of our good will could neither prevail nor prevent this sudden termination of the most beautiful… promises, oaths and legal obligations. On the other hand, beautiful things can be as fleeting as the beauty of a lifeless, cut flower- when these things are not meant and only made from convenience.
And yet – even if evil – this does not preclude a distant happy ending, only unhappy results and a heart-felt penitence that must be conducted and managed with even greater responsibility, better decision and more noble action than evidenced in our practice and commitment in marriage.
Love, marriage, and me are no longer what they seemed to be. Yes, I am changed, changing, and becoming something else — not without heart aching and unbid tears.
Find out what a self-proclaimed blog star (me) has to say to an actual rock star (moby). See the official video for Alice, a track from the soon to be released album, Last Night.
moby and me (eu si moby)
On february 20th, moby writes:
“… san francisco, as i’ve written about before, is such an odd place. it’s beautiful and progressive and affluent, but it also has more hookers and drug dealers per sq km. than any city in the western world…”
I reply:
Dude… you need to get out more.
It’s obvious to me that you spend too much time in the clubs- especially if you think every woman on the street is a hooker. Most likely, they all just look like hookers.
Anyway, can we call them, working girls, instead of hookers? It seems to me that as long as we remember that they are persons, there can be hope for the rehabilitation of their dignity and destiny as persons.
Somehow, we also need to rehabilitate your concept of the western world. It’s more than NYC and LA. Most see it going as far as the African and Asian continents. Of course, the Russians are very offended by this kind of NATO-oriented talk. Generally speaking, Russians are somehow also western- if in their own mean-spirited way.
Since you don’t drive, I know that you sometimes get stuck in that feeling that the world begins and ends in NYC with a few frontier posts out there in the badlands (LA, SF, London, Paris, etc).
Bucharest is out there… on the edge of the Western world. You will even find a lot of people here that can speak English. A bit of advice – avoid the Romanian girls on Match.com, Yahoo Personals, High5, etc. Read the rest of this entry »
Moby’s sixth studio album, Last Night, is scheduled to be released this year on March 31st (UK) & April 1st (USA). Find the link below to download the sampler. Also see the official video for Disco Lies, a track from the soon to be released album. Before you go get some, kick it with me and hear me out on why I think moby is a Poli-fluential and what he should “do for his country” (think Kennedy).
Is Moby a Poli-fluential?
“One of electronic music’s most visible and talked-about figures by far,” Moby has a social network of tens of thousands of fans, worldwide. He is highly opinionated about politics and he communicates his political opinions to his fans via his journal at his highly trafficked website, http://www.moby.com.
If he gets excited enough about the Presidential race, his passionate advocacy for a candidate can have impact.
The Internet is proving to be the most powerful political campaign tool in the 2008 Party races for a US Presidential nominee. Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois prophet, made out like a bandit and I’ll tell you why. It’s also going to be interesting to see how the Internet will be used in politics elsewhere in the world. In Romania, for example, political candidates are thinking hard about how they can get similar results.
Politics is More Engaging
Politics got a lot more interesting this year. The Internet is proving to be the most powerful political campaign tool in the 2008 Party races for a US Presidential nominee. How quickly politics will change, globally, is yet to be seen. However, I suspect that political campaigns in Romania, for example, will quickly adopt the new online strategies and forever change the way politics is done there.
In the last four years, US political online strategies have demonstrated huge successes in fundraising, volunteer recruitment and candidate profiling, current political campaigns are aggressively adapting social media and online brand strategy to get empathy, popularity and votes. The concept of Poli-fluentials and their role in the new political process was defined by a recent report from the Institute for Politics, Democracy & The Internet (IPDI). Read the rest of this entry »
Obama critics on the Left and Right are trying to play a wide menu of prejudices including discrimation on the basis of race, religion, sex, political affiliation, and so-called unproven commitment to the Democratic Party. Such prejudices represent irrational hostilities and hasty judgments that lack sufficient evidence, knowledge or consideration. These prejudices are divisive and dangerous resistance to our individual pursuit of information, evidence, knowledge, and truth. These prejudices move us in the direction of Authoritarians.
Fear and Loathing in America
As the 2008 presidential campaigns move to the next level of national attention and debate, old and new prejudices have come out of the closet. With Senator Barack Obama’s chances of winning the Presidential election looking up; Obama critics on the Left and Right are trying to play a wide menu of prejudices including discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, political affiliation, and so-called unproven commitment to the Democratic Party.
With the gold-embossed wedding invitations all mailed out and her online gift registry all set up, Hillary will have to have her good cry before she can get over the canceled ceremonies. The only thing appropriate is for us to send her our heart-felt condolences.
Barack Obama doesn’t make a comeback like they say; he had a slow start as planned by the Democratic leadership. After all, he wasn’t supposed to go very far. Now he’s closing on the finish line of the presidential election and neither Democrats or Republicans know what happened. Below, Mark Lazen retells his recollection of this amazing story.
If the Democratic leadership continues to hide behind sorry excuses for neutrality and fairness, card-carrying Democrats across America may become disillusioned with the Party. They know Barack Obama is a man that can win the presidential election. They know that he comes to the American people with more than a message of hope; he is a man of action. Democrats need their Party leaders to come out and lead the victory march- carrying the Illinois prophet on their shoulders.
Obama wins hearts and minds
The popularity contest has been decided; Barack Obama has won the heart of the American liberal. And he will make headway with disappointed conversatives and the religious right as well. No one can deny the upper hand of the silver tongued prophet from Illinois. His message of hope has gone as far to even touch the hearts and inspire the imagination of Europeans and other observers.
It has been a long time since the American people were this excited about a Party nominee, presidential election or about a presidential candidate. Americans and the world want an American president that brings empathy, courage, will and justice to the presidential office. Barack Obama appears to have all that and much more. Read the rest of this entry »
This patsak will finally admit that for nth time, I have viewed will.i.am’s video for The Yes We Can Song. Based on an inspiring speech by Senator Barack Obama at a New Hampshire event, the video amplified the inspiration and it has went viral at warp speed.
The video is a masterpiece. It’s from the heart. It’s art. will.i.am, front man for hip hop phenomenon Black Eyed Peas and Director Jesse Dylan are media masters- will’s success in music already says as much. As a musical artist, will has demonstrated a strong feel for the pulse of a generation several times. The video has the the ingredients to move people to action. In my humble opinion, you can’t get better viral than this.
will.i.am schools Ogilvy – all of the big ad agencies, in fact. Naturally, Republicans and Hillary Clinton are not very happy about this triumph.
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Senator Obama, a Democrat, served eight years in the Illinois State Senate and since 2005 as a U.S. Senator for Illinois. Among his many achievements, he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. As everyone knows, Obama is running for president and Obama’s candidacy for president is endorsed up and down from celebrities to senators including Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). Described as a socialist by the right and all talk by Hillary Clinton, “the Illinois prophet” speaks clearly and down-to-earth with powerful words and wisdom like a Baptist minister.
What is surprising is that his mix of spiritual and political message does not seem to be offending liberals. Often quoting the bible by verse and number, he is an evangelist that speaks often about human dignity, empathy and compassion for our fellow man- not to mention the possibility of change, of healing America and repairing the world.
Yes, we can.
Here’s the message that I left on that blog:
I’m going to suspend my disappointment, suspicion, disillusionment and hesitation. will.i.am gave something strong from his heart and from his hope. We all need to give something strong from our heart and hope- if we are to change.
That change must be that we will join together in a common cause and hope as one people and one nation to further pursue the cause of Freedom.
This does not mean that I or you should abandon what we believe as individuals to be true, good and beautiful.
We must follow our conscience, each of us, but we must also work together and speak together because there are things that we can agree upon and accomplish together.
And, together, we can believe again that we are one people, one nation and one will for a common good, for a DREAM, and a freedom that embraces responsibility.
Here’s something from my heart and my hope to you…
Yes, we can.
Stan Faryna
Editor-in-chief of “Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America” (Praeger, 1996) Read the rest of this entry »
Things have changed; the Press has a new role in society- Media for advertising and marketing. As Thomas Sowell notes, The Press is not doing it’s duty. The good news is that New Media has replaced the advertising Media machine for unfiltered viewpoint and opinion.
The internet is a marketplace of opinion and views where people tell it like they see it and offer their personal opinion. Blogging and social networks are an example. And that thing that was The Press has become something else, an advertising Media machine. Soon enough, I regret that we all may be assimilated and retasked to the greatest unintended integrated marketing strategy ever. Unless we can keep the high ground of New Media.
Thomas Sowell on Media and Politics
Thomas Sowell writes this week about the Media and Politics. He makes an excellent example of Geoffrey Dawson at The Times of London in the 1930s. Dawson, Sowell explains, “filtered” the news in an effort to encourage peace after so much pain from the First World War, and thereby, unintentionally, downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
Sowell reminds us that journalists have a duty to tell the public “the truth as they see it and to offer their honest opinion as to what it means.” Read the rest of this entry »
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