Darth Aol, A Princess, And A Legend of a Free Press

Return of the Jedi-ess

Sooner or later, Techcrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis will master the graceful art of the kowtow. Or join the ranks of freelance writers who struggle to pay the rent, story to story. OR not. Perhaps, Alexia will become a freedom fighter celebrated for her snarky courage and determination. Certainly, Alexia imagines that all her klout gives her the right to criticize her employer’s evil ways. Yeah, we’re talking about AOL.

You can read how Princess Alexia spanks Darth Aol here.

As a fellow Trojan (we are both alumni of the University of Southern California), I should be sympathetic just because! Fight on, Alexia! “Fight On!” was our motto at USC.

On the other hand, she’s fighting a bigger fight – the kind of fight that I can get excited about. Alexia is fighting corruption. She may not even know it. But Alexia is fighting the corruption of the press – an institution whose relevance to Freedom and Democracy was once considered so vital that it necessitated unambiguous protection by a Constitutional Amendment.

Security Measures of Summit Compromises Free Speech and Open Borders to EU citizens

NATO’s Bucharest Summit

As I have written elsewhere, the NATO Summit in Bucharest will determine the future of NATO for many years to come. Some (mostly harmless) questions in my mind:

Will European members rediscover a common will regarding redefined global goals and strategy of the alliance?

Will NATO come to represent something more than an American heavy hand in the European pie or merely as a gate keeper for nations seeking membership in the European Union?

Since the Cold War is over, how will NATO assure Russia that NATO plays a new role in international politics – a role that supports common economic interests including reasonable Russian interests?

Related to the NATO Summit in Bucharest, but more immediately interesting than the NATO specific questions on my mind is… recent authoritarian moves of the Romanian government to prevent dissenting opinion and protest about NATO in the Romanian public square.

Background music for your reading: Marilyn Manson, Nobodies

………………………………………………

………………………………………………

Why Romania is important

Why is Romania so important to the US and NATO?

I’m not talking about the Romanian hotties- though there is much to be said about that subject. Some local hot shots are even grumbling that all the working girls are booked solid for the Summit. Rumors have it that the Italian and French diplomats may have arrived a bit in advance of the Summit to log some quality fly time.

Thomas Sowell, Media, Politics and Idiocracy

Five cent tour in Bablion:

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.”