Category Archives: Text

Follow Law, Not the Law

It is an interesting era to live in, this age of new and better uses for the internet, as some people get it and some people.. well.. don’t yet. By interesting I mean sometimes it is exciting and enlightening, while other times it is extremely frustrating feeling like the guy who came from the future to tell everyone important information and no one will listen.

But I’m not from the future, I just live relatively close to the cutting edge when it comes to information and journalism. (or so I tell myself)

Therefore I like to share with all of you who are out there. A mix of individuals, some old friends, some new friends, some have never spoken to me before, and others see me all the time. You look to me for some reason, and the least I can do is bring some new ideas to light and recommend those who I consider to be essential sources for knowledge.

One such source relates to the world of law; JURIST. This is a blog from the University of Pittsburg that covers all the big legal issues going on in the world. Every day or so I run down the list of latest posts in their feed and follow their sources. Sometimes this leads me to a new story, or helps me to reach a more informed opinion on issues as far off as the new constitutional provisions in Kazakhstan or the mass release of improperly sentenced juveniles in Texas. Either way it concerns me as a citizen of the world who values social justice and human rights.

So if you’re in to these types of values… make sure to subscribe to JURIST.

Building Bridges in Mississippi

Took the journey to Amsterdam Noord today, to say hello to a visitor from Long Beach Mississippi. Yup, one half of the wonderful couple that I stayed with on the gulf coast, is here in Amsterdam for a few weeks.

As we sat down and started to run down all the updates about people, places, and anything under the sun, she mentioned that the famous bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian was just re-opened. (if you’ve never seen images of the bridge in ruins like fallen dominoes, it is pretty amazing)

I was pretty excited to hear the news. While so much of what I saw in Louisiana and Mississippi, seemed so hopeless, and so completely frozen in time when it comes to rebuilding… it is great to hear that such a vital bridge has been reopened.

As I drove from New Orleans to Long Beach, I of course, couldn’t take that bridge as it was still being rebuilt. I didn’t even get near enough to look at the construction work. But when I eventually make my return to the Gulf Coast, I have definitely made myself a promise to not only go see what rebuilding is taking place in Bay St. Louis, but also, I intend to drive along the bridge and hopefully feel some sense of excitement that rebuilding can and is taking place somewhere.

Happy Birthday Malcolm X

Malcolm X, a man who’s life and words shape how I see the world, would have been 82 years old today. Every month or so, I take out my collection of audio files and video clips, or I sit down and watch Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, because I continuously find new meaning and inspiration. Today, as I sat watching and listening to all these things in honor of his birthday, I’ve been thinking alot about how he changed in his life, and how his world view evolved after he went to Mecca. I wonder if I too will one day look back on some experience in my life as my “Mecca”.

In celebration of his life, one of the great video clips of his return from Mecca.

Nuclear Juntas

Can’t quite finish the vlog I’m working on tonight so instead I wanted to bring up Burma. Or Myanmar, same difference.

What strikes me as odd and worthy of attention about Burma is that over the past 6 years they’ve managed to come in completely below the diplomatic and global media radar. Besides the international sanctions applied years ago, rarely does any politician in any country make a concerned speech about a country ruled by a bunch of military thugs. They periodically arrest political dissidents and are conducting their own insane slave labor project of building a new capital, mostly funded with the help of Dick Cheney associates of the oil industry. I guess that detail helps to explain some of the silence from the diplomatic side.

Today I read about Russia’s deal to supply them with a nuclear reactor. Naturally the Russian government, having long shown it doesn’t care much for human rights, see’s no problem in doing such big business with a cabal that the world likes to not think about. And irritatingly enough, compared to all the noise about Iran, or the scary stories spread about North Korea, one would have to work very hard to find criticism of this deal from any powerful government out there.

For the time being, I’ll look to the Burma correspondents of global voices online, who normally provide a good snapshot of happenings in the isolated country.

Tomorrow I’m coming out of academic retirement and participating in blogwalk Amsterdam. I think I’ll take the boat, hopefully parking won’t be bad.

Prepping Child Care Workers Show

Currently researching, in between doing some projects for trippist.com, the order by the governor of New York that Child Care Workers be allowed to organize and form labor unions.

As I seek out guests, I’m thinking alot about the whole industry, and how it works. Those people who take care of the children, often its the type of job that gets paid under the table, isn’t it? Perhaps many immigrants as well, who often fear what risks may be involved with organizing, or perhaps they aren’t aware of their rights.

What I’m most curious about are the next steps. Once this decision goes into effect, suddenly all these people have the right to demand some basic standards of work. Will big unions take the lead and recruit them or teach them how to do things? Will smaller locals of child care workers emerge around new york state? Will many somehow get fired for trying?

Sorting through the questions while sorting through the interview possibilities. It is hard to believe that they didn’t have the right to organize to begin with. I wonder how that was possible for so long. And what about this Elliot Spitzer, a few months on the job and he’s already more competent than most governors in my brief lifetime.

Podcast, including all these questions and concerns, in the coming days…

Pain of Potential

It feels like May, to me, when frisbee season is in full swing and I’m playing three times a week or more and I run and throw for hours without noticing. It also means that new people join the our league here in Amsterdam, and that inevitably means all those questions that I can never answer properly about what I do.

What do I do? “I’m an internet journalist.” “I’m a podcast journalist.” “I’m a freelancer.” “I do a little of everything.” “I’m under-employed.” Or my personal favorite “I drive a red boat around town.” No doubt it has scared away a potential date or two.

And so this evening I’m reading up a bit on the wonderful Portuguese blog written by Antonio Granado about journalism and the internet. Recently he pointed out some facts about the online application known as twitter. If you’ve no idea what twitter is, I can summarize what you’re missing – Potentially great, amazingly useless.

Why so bitter? It is like many things in this life and on these internets, the power to harness creative energy and people through revolutionary communication…. used to broadcast complete nothingness.

Picture it, you go on twitter and you have a small collection of friends, a common thing with all the internet applications these days. And whenever you easily and quickly type in a 2 line message, all your friends can see it in a real time chronological list. NOW, ideally, this could be used for say… a group of journalists… or say gardeners.. writing brief updates about a project, problem, or pressing issue that collectively, the group could certainly benefit from hearing about and responding to it. The same has always been said for how blogging or lots of different online applications could be used.

So I joined twitter many months ago, loaded it up with 20 or so of my favorite videobloggers, podcasters, and those I consider internet activists.. concerned about understanding the world around them. I purposely do not add another 40 to 60 people, most likely some very nice people who I suppose want to hear my little messages, but whose messages I just do not want to spend time reading.

But whether it is on my list, or someone else’s list, most of what is happening is simply garbage. Occasionally I find that even I join in and write some useless garbage like “trying to figure out where the socks get lost in the laundry process.” Just one more in the pile of messages about who is bored. Who is eating. Who is watching TV.

So much potential in the hands of we who somehow don’t take advantage…don’t manage to get passed ourselves and our provincial thoughts or activities. And then we hear about how twitter is growing and how amazing it is and wow what an application.

Amazing indeed. Some guy just announced he’s going to sleep while another one is about to watch the latest Sopranos. Rest easy world, today’s internet user is highly complex and concerned about the problems of this world.