Listics

Next thing you know they’ll be doing puppets.

Technorati Tags: new yorker cover

USC’s Annenberg School of Communications Online Journalism Review (OJR) will be no more, reports Robert Niles through a post on the OJR blog and via a Facebook announcement. A goal of OJR “has been to help mid-career journalists make a successful transition from other media to online reporting and production.” USC Annenberg refers OJR readers to the Knight Digital Media Center, where support in this area will continue.

Details about the reasons for shuttering the OJR site are missing at this point, but Niles will continue blogging and community organizing at a new site he calls “Sensible Talk.” Sensible Talk is billed as “Analysis from the reality-based world.”

I can get behind that.

Technorati Tags: robert niles, sensible talk, online journalism review, ojr, USC annenberg, KDMC

“It’s pouring rain here in Surrey, British Columbia, just outside Vancouver. A Ford F-350 Super Duty is parked in front of an office building with its front passenger-side tire squashed against the curb, a telltale sign that its driver was in a big hurry. People in a hurry make mistakes. I amble past the truck to scope it out. It’s unlocked. The bed holds a few bright orange construction cones, and the cab is littered with crumpled fast-food containers. Then I spot the jackpot: a glittering set of keys tossed on the center console. This truck is just begging me to steal it.”

Read more about Ben getting in touch with his inner car thief in this month’s issue of Wired.

Technorati Tags: Wired, cool wheels, cars 2.0, ben paynter

Patrick Lang blogs at Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). He served in the Department of Defense both as a serving officer and then as a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service for many years. He is a highly decorated veteran of several of America’s overseas conflicts including the war in Vietnam. He was trained and educated as a specialist in the Middle East by the U.S. Army and served in that region for many years. He was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. In the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) he was the “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism,” and later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service.” For his service in DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” This is the equivalent of a British knighthood. He is an analyst consultant for many television and radio broadcasts.

His presentation on current events is brilliantly informed and balanced. His commenters are also of the same stripe — people with insights informed by experience and direct knowledge.

From his post “Iraqi Forces vs. the Extremists”…

It is clear that US policy is to back Maliki/Dawa/ISCI/Badr Corps (Iraqi Forces) against Moqtada al-Sadr and his “army” of “shirtless ones.” Fine. Why not? I guess the US has no choice but to back someone.

I suppose that the powers that be will shift the Main Supply Route (MSR) to the west (Nasiriyah) if the Basra area becomes too obstructed.

My problem with the present course of events is the ruthlessness of the propaganda campaign being successfully waged by the Bush Administration. The president has succeeded in “framing” the discussion in such a way that Maliki and his assembly of Badr Corps militias are represented as being the equivalent of George Washington suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion. The noble Maliki is portrayed as motivated by a selfless desire for “national” unity. The MSM has re-transmitted that idea without serious question.

In fact he is merely acting on behalf of an emerging alignment of pro-Iranian forces in Iraq that have successfully pulled the wool over American eyes.

… and from a post titled “UCMJ extends to civilian contractors - Gates” we learn that according to the Secretary of Defense Blackwater bullies no longer have license to murder, rape, and pillage (which has to take a lot of the fun and profit out being a mercenary):

The [Gates] directive provides authority for officers and NCOs to arrest and detain persons seen conducting a crime and for military authorities to pursue investigations that may lead to trial by general court martial.

The directive requires DoD to inform the US Department of Justice (DoJ) that it is proceeding against particular civilians. This provision exists to allow DoJ to take charge of the case involving civilians if it wishes. If DoJ declines then the military is authorized to proceed under its own legal system.

A commenter suggests, “But most of these private armies are neither serving with or for the Dept. of Defense. Most are attached to State or to the private contractors and are not under those contractual obligations that the DOD imposes. So the DOD [may have] no jurisdiction….” Interesting discussion ensues.

Col. Lang has a healthy skepticism for most things that smell of Cheney or Bush. He writes respectfully of Obama, and supportively of Clinton. He has no time for McCain whom he considers to be ill informed. I liked this bit:

The Vice President seems as insulated from reality as always and absolutely shameless in his public denials of reality in Iraq. What’s the deal with him? Is he really impaired somehow or is it about the money as the “oilies” insist?

Then, there is John McCain. He does seem impaired. Lieberman had to remind him that AQ is a Sunni group who hate the government of Iran?

The Democrats need to sober up and get Hillary and Obama onto the same ticket. I don’t care who gets the top spot.

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox’s smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them.

Please sign the petition requesting major American news outlets to report the news, and not parrot the insanity that Fox news is peddling.

Technorati Tags: fox news, propaganda engine

…a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70 percent of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57 percent of boys 15 to 17).

The quote above is from an article by Stephanie Rosenbloom, who writes for the New York Times Fashion-Style section(s). The article’s placement makes Mary Hodder angry. Hodder says,

So when they interview people like Doc Searls or [Loic LeMeur] or David Weinberger, all of whom are very smart about tech, those articles are in the tech section, but when they talk to girls, who for the record, are far more technical than these three tech experts, girls are put in Fashion.

Can you tell I’m pissed? WTF?

While she has a point, she could make it more judiciously. Working for the Fashion-Style section, Rosenbloom has written loads of features like this on the quotidian emergence of webby trends. One of my favorites was on Atoosa Rubenstein’s Alpha Kitty YouTube series inspired by the book, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B, and Back Again.” In that article, Rosenbloom asks regarding Rubenstein,

Can this old-media veteran make it in the virtual world, where so many others have stumbled?

One thing going for her is that teenage girls are more socially active than boys online and are more likely than boys to participate in blogs, bulletin boards and chat forums, according to Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com.

I think that’s the point she was sharpening with the article that put Hodder’s knickers in a twist.

*** UPDATE ***

Mary Hodder has revised the post at Napsterization, deleting the reference to Shirky and referencing instead Loic LeMeur. She’s also temporized nicely to include assurances that her post wasn’t “about David or Loic or Doc (all extremely supportive of women in tech, btw)….” She goes on to say, “My point is that the NYTimes puts men who talk tech and trends or social impact in tech/biz, and women who code web art / pages in fashion.” I’ve left a comment asking if she’d care to share the reasons for that update. My comment remains in her moderation queue.

I think I understand why the four females featured (ages 13, 14, 16 and 17) aren’t found yet in the Technology section with Doc and David; but, the feature itself is well placed to pick up a readership of young females who — we hope — will have their techno-interests validated and affirmed by their peers in Rosenbloom’s story. Rosenbloom acknowledges,

But even though girls surpass boys as Web content creators, the imbalance among adults in the computer industry remains. Women hold about 27 percent of jobs in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In American high schools, girls comprised fewer than 15 percent of students who took the AP computer science exam in 2006, and there was a 70 percent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science from 2000 to 2005, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.

It should be obvious to even the most committed feminist that spreading the word about the disparity, giving it the widest possible exposure, including in the Style-Fashion sections of the newspaper, is a positive gesture.I’m glad that people writing on the fashion beat are clued in to what’s happening in pop tech. Mary Hodder should be glad too.

Technorati Tags: whoa, no money quote from danah boyd, wtf

My preceding post highlighted a perspective from Kenya. After writing it, I moved on to see what the blogosphere is sharing about the meetings at Davos. Robert Scoble offers two short video subjects that I hoped would be of interest. He says,

John Gage, chief researcher at Sun Microsystems. Talked with me about helping people in Africa.

Daniel Shapiro, talked with me about conflict resolution. He is a professor at the Havard Law School and works with governments around the world to try to decrease violence and increase democracy.

What an amazing opportunity Robert has been given:  the opportunity to engage some of the top minds and most influential people on the planet in brief conversations to share with us, the people who can’t be there.

After watching those two Qik-ies, how would you grade him?

Ben Paynter has a feature in the current issue of Details magazine titled “The New Holy War.” The article discusses fundamentalist Christian excesses in the US military in Iraq. Atheists in the military find themselves forced to serve in an atmosphere of intimidation. A movement called the Dominionists comprises roughly a quarter of active US military personnel, from enlisted men to senior officers. Many in this group feel the Iraq war is a foreshadowing of a biblical “Armageddon.” (Christianity, like many complex belief systems, has a controlling central myth relating to “the end of the world.” As primitive Norse believed in an afterlife in “Valhalla,” so many Christians believe in an afterlife in “heaven.” As the primitive Norse believed in a final battle, that will result in a collapse of the cosmos (Ragnarok), so the Christians believe in a final battle called “Armageddon.” This shit would be funny if the true believers weren’t armed with nukes and empowered in their nutsiness by Robert Gates and George W. Bush.

Sorry to get carried away with my take on it. Ben’s more balanced story is linked from here. (It’s a 6MB pdf — Adobe Reader required).