The internet is shit has a good point, but it’s lessened by the fact that it uses the Internet to make that point. Ooops!
Thanks to Dave Weinberger for breaking the profanity barrier, and to my friend Colette for inventing a seemingly-polite way to say shit* when we were 8.
So I would be very excited that the brilliant Lawrence Lessig appears on tonight’s West Wing… played by Christopher Lloyd (!!!), but instead I’m pissed off because of course I will be watching the aforementioned basketball game! Last week, West Wing was preempted by the State of the Union speech. The contrast between George Bush and Martin Sheen was too much for me to bear – I had to lie down far from a TV.
Good thing I have a VCR!
I’m looking forward to the basketball game this Wednesday more than I have looked forward to any non-tournament basketball game since 1993. If you are wondering “what game?” then you probably ain’t from around these parts. I usually don’t pay much attention this stuff, but I am getting happily sucked back into the ACC this year. I’m actually looking forward to March Madness! What’s come over me?
This morning I led a workshop at the 2005 SURGE Conference about using the Internet as a tool for activism. I promised the participants that I would post some links here to the websites we discussed.
Network-centric/grassroots advocacy:
Local stuff:
Pro-choice blogs:
Blogs & journalism:
Some of the important things we discussed about blogs:
Whew! That was quite a brain dump. Please feel free to add your own links and suggestions in the comments. Thanks again to those who participated in today’s workshop.
Here it is:
Hi, I’m showing my friend Stan how easy it is to blog! Here’s a link to his old site, new one coming soon…
One friend recently asked me to post my travel schedule on the blog so that she could keep up with whether I was around. This week my schedule is such that I need to write it down just to keep myself straight.
Tomorrow I am going to DC for a commitment that isn’t until Friday, which sucks. I found out too late that this conference expected me to pay to attend the parts at which I am not presenting. I declined to waste my boss’ money (I don’t work for The Man, but The Woman) on the event. So I will be there way early, but I will be plenty busy. In fact, now I am trying to get to DC even sooner than I had intended because there are many activities that I would prefer to be on the ground for rather than in the air. One includes meeting our new interim honcho.
Thursday will be a regular work day, except I will be in an office instead of my house. Strange (for me). Thursday night I will visit one of my oldest friends in the world, who lives in Baltimore. I don’t think I’ve ever been there properly, so this will be an educational as well as a fun experience. Finally on Friday, I get to make the 20 minute panel presentation that I schlepped there for, attend a quick meeting, and then hightail it for the airport.
I have been asked to remind you, dear readers, how to subscribe to my blog by e-mail. This way you get each post delivered right to you, as it happens. You won’t get anything else from me or from this e-mail list if you sign up.
Just click here or on the permanent “e-mail updates” link on the right to subscribe. Of course, if you are RSS-inclined, there is also the XML feed to which you can subscribe from any self-respecting aggregator.
Tomorrow I’ll be speaking about Orange Politics to a class at UNC on Emerging Issues in Information Science. The students are graded (in part) on posting to their class blog every week!
Clearly I went to college about 15 years too early.
You gotta love McSweeney’s. (OK, you don’t have to, but I recommend it. True, it would be easier to love if their RSS feed didn’t suck so bad. But I digress.) Here’s a recent addition to their series of lists:
THINGS I’D PROBABLY SAY IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST A WEEKLY TV SHOW AND I WERE A REGULAR VIEWER.
By Eric Maierson‘Now, see, you can’t just go and do something like that. That would be illegal.’
‘Boy, someone’s gonna get fired for that.’
‘Wasn’t that the one who made all the mistakes? Why is she getting promoted?’
‘Come on, in real life you’d never get away with something like that.’
‘They really expect us to believe that?’
‘Am I the only one confused here?’
‘Does this make any sense to you?’
‘Why is this still on?'”
