|
I’ve been on break from my column at Arthur Magazine, mostly because I simply have to finish my book. Meanwhile, I’ve learned that Arthur is in the midst of a true financial crisis. Whether or not the market can keep a project like Arthur alive by itself is a conversation we’ll have to have later. In the meantime, I’m posting a link to the Arthur Magazine site and its plea for donations. The content in the magazine - as well as most of its realworld events - have been created as freeware, but maybe a shareware model will prove more sustainable. I’m sure Jay Babcock, the editor, is also interested in whether anyone cares to invest in the...
Link Email item
I’m speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008 on Tuesday morning, bright and early. I’ve only got 12 minutes, so I’ll try to say just one thing: democracy as we know it was built around the notion of the individual. Democracy as an open source phenomenon needs to be something else entirely - and it may look and feel strange to those of us raised on Enlightenment ideals of individual rights and possession of property. It’s a collective phenomenon that requires intelligence, participation, knowledge, and collaboration. In other words, it carries on long after a new name is successfully put in office. Are we ready for that? I’m not sure. I don’t know yet whether the conference...
Link Email item
Nothing against Barack Obama, but we’d be mistaken to consider his politics a complete break from the past, a renaissance in participatory government, or the realization of an Internet-enabled “open source” democracy. He’s pretty damn good, don’t get me wrong, and he may just represent the closest thing yet to a GenX, post-boomer, anti-sentimental and a-mythic candidate for president. But there are a few ways in which his candidacy also reinforces some of the branded, celebrity-based, and charismatic techniques of traditional politics. To make the most of his candidacy and, hopefully, his presidency, we’ll have to distinguish one from the other. When Obama was first emerging into national awareness, he showed both promise and predictability. I watched his speech...
Link Email item
Here’s stuff I’ve been meaning to tell you about but haven’t made the time. Our good friend Propaganda is at it again. He’s made some deep posts here and on the forums - thought you’d be interested in what he actually does on his own time. I’m speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum at the end of June in NYC. This should be an interesting conference - but it costs. With any luck there will be a simulcast of some kind. I will push for that. Mark Pesce will be in town, so let’s try to force him to go out with us. A rare - and maybe my last voluntary synagogue talk - for the...
Link Email item
Arthur Magazine, June 2008 There’s two kinds of people asking me about the economy lately: people with money wanting to know how to keep it “safe,” and people without money, wanting to know how to keep safe, themselves. Maybe it’s the difference between those two concerns that best explains the underlying nature of today’s fiscal crisis. Is what’s going on in the economy right now really worse than anything that’s happened in the past few decades? Are we heading towards a bank collapse like what happened in 1929? Or something even worse? On a certain level, none of these questions really matter. Not as they’re being phrased, anyway. What we think of as “the economy” today isn’t real, it’s...
Link Email item
Albert Hoffman, the inventor of LSD, who accidentally ingested some and then found out what it was really for, died today. I met him in the 90’s in LA, back during the psychedelic “revival.” Maybe now there will be another one. Hoffman was a soft-spoken and friendly fellow, always ready to answer a query without making you feel stupid for asking. That’s the kind of scientist I like. (Weirdly, Hoffman’s death is not in his Wikipedia article yet.)       
Link Email item
Every time I speak, people ask me about new media and money - namely, how to make money through the internet. And they always bring up Rupert Murdoch. He wouldn’t have bought the Wall Street Journal if he didn’t think there was money in it, right? Right, but wrong. There’s money for Murdoch in buying the Journal, but not the money you’re thinking about. What Murdoch wants is a respectable business brand. The WSJ is that. It was actually a profitable online business, too - their articles were valuable enough for people to pay real money to access them. But that’s not the money Murdoch wants. Murdoch wants to spend the WSJ’s credibility on two very different things. First,...
Link Email item
The RSS/Atom feeds should be working, now. I found a blank line in the functions.php file (for those of you who might be interested) which seemed to be generating an unwanted blank line before the xml thingee, which made some feed-readers break. So now you should be able to subscribe to this blog (and, soon, my upcoming talks feed) by clicking on the orange button up and to your right. For those of you unfamiliar with Feeds - most simply, it can create a mailbox for each of the blogs you read, right in your mail reader. New posts just show up, so you don’t have to prowl around the web to see who might have said something.
Link Email item
Just back home from Comic-Con, where I had the unique pleasure of doing a “conversation” with Scott McCloud, moderated by Marianne Petit. I’ve received dozens of emails from people who were unable to attend, asking if there’s a transcript anywhere. Turns out there’s a lot better: a full video and an audio podcast, along with some commentary from the brilliant folks at DailyCrosshatch. The conversation, as well as the whole convention, made me feel quite at home in comics again, after a brief hiatus to get caught up on my regular book. Honestly, there’s nothing like comics, and I feel like we’re still safely insulated from some of the forces that are diluting the power of alternative media.
Link Email item
This site will be “under construction” for the next month or so. Everything is up for grabs, so if there’s something you want design-wise, content-wise, or context-wise, this will be the place to request it. By September, the whole thing, including Forums, should be up to speed. Then you’ll get a sense of what it is this whole transition has been about. Thanks for understanding in the meantime; I hope everything you need is still accessible.       
Link Email item
Website
| 
