It may not be all that surprising to media cynics out there like me that the big news yesterday was that the second most important newspaper in the country is / has been selling its access to the big players in DC and subsequent press attention. I am asking for your forgiveness in advance, because I’m about to go on a rant. If you didn’t see this coming, you haven’t been paying attention to my tweets.

To its credit, the Washington Post, on the whole by a very slim plurality, does what it is supposed to do–speak truth to power and explain to the public what is happening inside the Beltway. Thank god for reporters like Walter Pincus who have upheld the ideals of journalism while the building burns down around him.

From my perspective, this whole episode began with Dana Milbank, a loserface who “writes the Washington Sketch column about political theater in the capitol,” flipping shit because, god forbid, a reporter for the Huffington Post, a blog-based political news and opinion website (holy fuck those amateurs!), was called on by the President because he knew the question would be one from an Iranian reporter. Milbank basically said this was no different than having a ‘plant’ in the press briefing to ask a softball question, which was commonplace during the Bush years. Well, I’m sorry, Dana, that you or your WaPo and MSM colleagues didn’t find the Iranian struggle important enough to dig up some questions that real, actual Iranians might have for the president. Please, excuse the Huffington Post from doing actual journalism, just this once, okay?

What is the traditional media’s problem with blogs anyway? They do have trained reporters that write up news articles, getting as many facts as they can, finding the truth per se. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, they are likely shitting themselves over the fact that the blogs are filled with opinions, and therefore everything associated with them is poisoned with bias. I mean, opinion and news are like oil and water, right? Who the fuck would ever take a news source that published both news and opinion seriously?  I guess the pages and pages (not to mention dollars and dollars) spent on condescending pundit opinions and observations is okay when the newspaper does it, because they are endowed with the divine abilitiy to separate news from opinion, by virtue of simply being the Washington Post.

video management, video solution, video streaming What’s underlying Dana Milbank’s somewhat isolated and outlier-ed asshole-ness is the Bourgeoisie concept of professional entitlement, the idea that “I deserve y because I have x.” Milbank and the mainstream media coduct their daily work counter to the kind of meritocracy any profession, especially journalism, should actually be founded upon. “I deserve to ask the POTUS questions because I’m from the fucking Washington Post, bitches!” I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve wasted your life climbing the ruthless ladder of professional journalism to get yourself into the White House Press Corps, but you don’t have to project your inadequacies on me, Hector Projector. Shit.

So we have Milbank desperately trying to hang onto his entitlement from being a Washington Post reporter (though his column doesn’t shine any truthful light on what goes on in DC, it’s basically filled with trash along the same lines as a tabloid covering Hollywood celebrities, only these are Washington DC celebrities who apparently run our lives) on week, then the next week, we have a pay-for-press scheme (via Politico):

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.”

Awesome. And it only costs $25,000 to attend. Can you possibly have less integrity? Basically, the WaPo thinks that it can hide behind it’s reputation that its a ‘reputable’ newspaper with ‘reputable’ reporters who have ‘reputable’ sources. Yeah. Right. This is the unraveling of the main stream media; of newspapers specifically, but notions about what constitutes professional journalism generally.

When you add it all up, there’s no way you come out of this story and believe the Post when it says the newsroom maintains its independence from the marketing department. It’s bullshit. Every one of the children of privilege working for the Post is compromised. How can you take any report the Post does about Health Care seriously, now? Were they paid to write the story? Even if they never take a dime to write a story, I don’t think I can take any story at face value, ever again, and neither should anyone else.

Juxtaposed to Milbank’s whining, what we have here is a shit-ton of hypocrisy. The left hand of the Post thinks that reporting should be left to serious professionals because the work of the media is serious business, while the right hand is wining and dining the power players, essentially selling its reputation as a serious institution to the highest bidder. Fuck That. This is how democracy dies.

The butt of all this is that now the WaPo is now the butt of all journalism jokes. Even Robert Gibbs joked about it for a while.  Any report or story that seems fishy ad infinitum from the Washington Post, there’s gonna be a joke, like this one at the end of the abbreviated pundit roundup on Daily Kos:

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

For a small fee, you can come over for dinner and we can discuss whether to post more stories like this. Nota Bene: the dinner has been canceled because of an overzealous publicist.

The paper’s credibility has been waning since the infamous lead up to the Iraq War; now it’s non-existant. We must now treat the Washington Post with the same skepticism reserved previously to obviously biased and compromised news sources like partisan blogs and Fox News.

Washington Post? Get back in line. You need to earn your spot again, if you ever deserved it.

No, I’m not talking about the death of celebrities. No, that’s not what I’m here to discuss. Lots of news happened, importantly, on the political front, as of late. Many of these articles are outdated now, but I’ll give you the excerpts anyway.

Look for a post about Pride 2009 in Baltimore later this week. It will have photos, once I buy a pro membership to Flickr. That’s how they make their money, obviously. Smart. Also, Kim is again stateside, so my mood is likely to improve. Yea.

Also, make sure you’re keeping up with “What I’m Followin’” tab over there on the right column. There is lots of good stuff to read that may or may not appear in the Required Readings.

What you should be reading

This one isn’t “news” but analysis. It’s great though. I love how Taibbi can sit even the most talented and gifted writers down.

Fareed Zakaria’s Manifesto
Matt Taibbi

This is a beautiful piece of writing. Describing the misdeeds of Wall Street in the last decade by saying “few people acted… nobly” is sort of like saying that Stalin was “not always sociable” or O.J. Simpson was “not always committed to preserving life.” I mean, talk about a freaking understatement. Forgetting entirely the other insane lies in this passage (my favorite being the one about bureuacrats not taking cash for favors — I guess he means except for Bob Rubin taking $130 million or whatever from Citi after pushing through that merger), that “not so noble” bit is where Zakaria earns his money.

Because if you get into the actual gory details of what went on in those years, there’s just no way you come out of that story not wanting to see every banker on Wall Street strung up by his testicles.

This one is about the Supreme Court and it’s potentially landmark ruling about searches in schools.

SCOTUS: Teen Strip-Serach Unconstitutional, But …
Adam B, Daily Kos

This is depressing:

Another casualty of the recession: Recent college grads
Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers

New monthly survey data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston finds that during the first four months of 2009, less than half of the nation’s 4 million college graduates age 25 and under were working in jobs that required a college degree. That’s down from 54 percent for same period last year.

For some discussion surrounding the recent passage of the Waxman-Markey energy bill, pre passage.

Climate Change Protection, or Climate Change Assurance?
Devilstower, Daily Kos

So what kind of bill can put Greenpeace and the clean coal folks on the same side of the aisle? One that’s far weaker than we would hope for. It may not give the clean coal team everything they would wish for, but it certainly gives them a stocking full of goodies.

This won’t help anyone’s disaffection with the political system.

Another bangin’ Krugman column. He continues to be my hero:

Not Enough Audacity
Paul Krugman, New York Times

The point is that if you’re making big policy changes, the final form of the policy has to be good enough to do the job. You might think that half a loaf is always better than none — but it isn’t if the failure of half-measures ends up discrediting your whole policy approach.

Which brings us back to health care. It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn’t succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn’t worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it’s doomed to fail.

[...]

And that’s why the public plan is an important part of reform: it would help keep costs down through a combination of low overhead and bargaining power. That’s not an abstract hypothesis, it’s a conclusion based on solid experience. Currently, Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance companies, while federal health care programs other than Medicare (which isn’t allowed to bargain over drug prices) pay much less for prescription drugs than non-federal buyers. There’s every reason to believe that a public option could achieve similar savings.

Indeed, the prospects for such savings are precisely what have the opponents of a public plan so terrified. Mr. Obama was right: if they really believed their own rhetoric about government waste and inefficiency, they wouldn’t be so worried that the public option would put private insurers out of business. Behind the boilerplate about big government, rationing and all that lies the real concern: fear that the public plan would succeed.

Tarnished Shields: Mark Sanford And The Morally Bankrupt GOP Leadership
Walter Brasch, The Public Record

Basically, the articlerehashes recent political history and is all about how hypocritical Republicans are when they claim to be the party of family values.

Another post, below, along the same lines:

Clinton impreachment manager: GOP should lose “stinking rot of self-righteousness”
kos, Daily Kos

Like the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists, conservatives seek to impose their morality on the rest of us via governmental coercion (legislation and the bully pulpit). They are incapable of minding their own business, and seek to stick their noses into peoples’ bedrooms and doctor offices. Yet time and time again, their relentless moralizing is proven to be hypocritical grandstanding, as they are unable to meet even the lowest of bars they try to impose on others.

We don’t care if Republicans want to fuck around on their wives and husbands. Those are private affairs. Yet Republicans seek to criminalize such behavior in a bid for votes and social approbation.

So yeah, we’ll laugh and mock when Republicans are busted as hypocrites. If you want to make “family values” the centerpiece of your political persona, then don’t ditch your kids on Father’s Day to fuck your mistress!

The amazingness continues. Read it for a little fun!

One more post on health reform:

The Netroots and the House Progressives: Toward More Progressive Policy
mcjoan, Daily Kos

As part of the progressive movement, we’re in a sort of a feedback loop with the Caucus, working on both the policy formation and policy framing efforts–sort of the stick part of the process, as well as the “amplification” side–more the carrot part where we do our best to shore up their good efforts, provide them the public support, the financial support and, frankly, the ongoing pressure they need to have to become what will essentially be a progressive stop to the Senate.

Don’t ever underestimate the pressure part of this, on the House, on the Senate, on the White House.

Good stuff. And goodnight.

Oh my. I’m pretty sure they make these nerdy political and digital videos just for me. Click the links to open up the video in a shadowbox. I don’t want to embed to objects because the page already loads too slowly

Want Obama Girl? Save Your Energy (Music Video + Advocacy)

Terminator: Salvation – Deleted Scene

Sarah Connor is American, right? So why are we sending back a Terminator with an Austrian accent?

Obama Girl Plays Wii Tennis at E3 with Barack, Hillary and Bill

Sometimes I forget you’re standing right next to me.

Star Trek: Beam Me Up, Hottie

You can’t even focus on the enemy, me, who is trying to take over your ship.

Hilarious.

“If during the week you need an audio fix, you can download the podcast on iTunes by searching for Matt Darey Nocturnal in the iShop.”

I’ve been hearing that line a lot recently, in my car, via either internet radio, mp3, podcast, or burned CD-RW. Listening to the latest in dance music is hard work. There is so much of it out there, but very few full albums. Sure, if you look hard enough, I suppose you could find a few good singles available on Rhapsody. A full solo album by a dance floor superstar DJ is a rarity; you get maybe 2 or three of these in a year. Mix sets are plentiful, but usually feature the same songs in a different order via different DJs.

That’s why I’ve settled down and decided to listen to the radio and let the professionals do the work for me.

The internet radio scene actually functions they way they tell me radio proper used to be. DJs are able to sift through all kinds of music, picking out what they like, what suits them personally, and also what gets the audience amped-up on the dance floor. They get paid to find good tracks and play them for willing, loyal audiences. In the Clear Channel / Sirius era–where intelligent & interesting music choices are sacrificed for lowest common denominator profits (think: ‘Birthday Sex’)–, this kind of radio model seems almost implausible.

But the tools of the internet allow DJs from around the world to find fans on everywhere. This is the The Long Tail. Being able to find and create a base of loyal fans via the inexpensive media (pronounced media-er for purposes of this post) of  audio streaming and archiving allows DJs like Matt Darey to continue to bless our culture with good music. Obviously, you have to have the taste for trance and progressive house, like I do, to appreciate the beauty of this specific example, but stay with me for a few more paragraphs.

I started listening to Matt Darey because I knew of his progressive house taste, which is similar to mine, so I thought I’d give him a listen. It’s an amazing concept isn’t it, listening to a radio show because you like the DJ? I don’t think anyone listens to Ryan Seacrest because they like his taste in music. He just plays what he’s told to play, even he even does that much. He’s a good soldier for the monopolistic oligopolies that make up the music industry (shame we have to slap something as beautiful as ‘music’ with a term as unpleasant as ‘industry’).

I’ve been listening to Nocturnal Sunshine via mp3 for many months now. I’ve been trying to catch up. I don’t even know when the show is broadcast live or what stations to find it on. It isn’t broadcast on as many stations as his sister show, Nocturnal, but he does have the wherewithal to put it online, for free, in an archive where fans like little old rural me can grab it and listen to all the hottest tunes from one of my favorite DJs at my convenience. Which is awesome, and liberating.

Darey and his ilk have been able to establish a respectful rapport with trance electronica fans around the world by reaching out to fans where they already are. The obvious–MySpace. But Darey constantly reminds me in the car “to reach out to us on one of our websites, the forum at MattDarey.com, MySpace.com forward slash MattDarey, and the Matt Darey Facebook page.” This could be superficial. Could be. But I’m convinced it’s not, because a few months ago, after seeing fans at his shows “holding up their iPods filled with Nocturnal tracks” he decided to put both shows online as a podcast, and as an mp3 on his website.

There’s no reason to fight it. The people want their music, and it was clear that they were going to get via pseudo-illegal media-er regardless. Matt Darey and other DJs are realizing that instead of being evil and proprietary, it’s best to respect your fans and allow them to be as much a part of the music experience as possible, unlike the passive consumers of pop-culture who melt their minds listening to the latest Clear Channel favorites about a stupid dance some douche wants you to do at the club with your homies (no offense to all you people out there who like to get crunk; it has a time and a place, even in my life, but not in this post, sorry).

With all that in mind, check out a track he’s been featuring a lot lately on his show that I listened to while finishing this post. And here I meant to kind of review A State of Trance 2009. Ah well. Here’s my review: it’s fabulously uplifting as always. My oh my how 2009 sounds better than 2003. Damn. Also, check out Paul Van Dyk’s Best of 3 CD set, Volume. It’s got some true classics on there.

What you should be listening to

ATB, Gravity, Original Mix

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This has been a very depressing news cycle for me. Ugh. So much negativity swirling around my head. It means that you’ll probably be seeing a few rants within the next few days on this page.

Iran is still a mess, and people are dying. Of course I’d like the regime to fall, as well as the entire political system. But I feel bad for the Iranians. So much political turmoil, all the time. I guess I should feel lucky I live in the USA, where even in a system plagued by cynicism and inaction, at least we don’t have this in disputes over elections.

Once again, I’ve got a lot on my mind regarding health reform, and boy are we in the thick of things. People are getting worried left and right now that it looks like the Dems will be able to pull the trigger sooner than expected, getting some kind of reform passed within the year. I’m praying that they don’t sacrifice comprehensiveness simply to get something done, because then the plan will fail, and then not only will our health system remain in peril, but the Democrats will definitely take a hit in the ongoing popularity contest.

What’s most important to know right now about the health reform debate, something you might be missing if you follow cable news or read the op-ed pages of your local newspaper, is that 72 percent of the country supports a government-administered insurance plan. That’s a big mandate. If you think it is a good idea, you’re definitely not alone. Don’t let your federal representatives tell you that they know better than you and sweet talk you out of thinking it’s a good idea. They are lying, probably so they can get some dolla dolla bills from the fat cats.

Now, of course, a public insurance plan doesn’t solve everyone’s health problems magically, but…that’s…another…story. Let’s just make sure no one goes bankrupt when they have a medical emergency. I’ll take that as a positive outcome of all this.

I haven’t updated you all with any required readings recently. Sorry about that. Also, in order to collect what I may or may not be writing about or pointing to for your reading pleasure, I’ll be posting links to articles under the “What I’m Watchin’” tab. Also, I’m going to try out posting a song that I may or may not have been listening to while crafting the post. I hope you enjoy this feature. I know I will enjoy posting it.

What also is pissing me off right now is that I can’t insert any photos using any mechanism in wordpress. Nice. Issue Resolved.

What you should be reading

Firstly, if you missed Krugman’s column, here’s the gist:

In short, Mr. Obama has a clear vision of what went wrong, but aside from regulating shadow banking — no small thing, to be sure — his plan basically punts on the question of how to keep it from happening all over again, pushing the hard decisions off to future regulators.

I’m aware of the political realities: getting financial reform through Congress won’t be easy. And even as it stands the Obama plan would be a lot better than nothing.

But to live up to its own analysis, the Obama administration needs to come down harder on the rating agencies and, even more important, get much more specific about reforming the way bankers are paid.

He’s right and we should probably listen to him, again.

In a related note,

The Greatest Non-Apology of All Time
Matt Taibbi

Anyone else out there find himself doubled over laughing after reading Goldman, Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein’s “apology” for his bank’s behavior leading up to the financial crisis? Has an act of contrition ever in history been more worthless and insincere? Even Gary Ridgway did a better job of sounding genuinely sorry at his sentencing hearing — and he was a guy who had sex with dead prostitutes because it was cheaper than paying live ones.

Looking at Blankfein’s one-sentence apology, I’m struck in particular by a couple of phrases:

While we regret that we participated in the market euphoria…

Really, Lloyd? You “participated” in the market euphoria? You didn’t, I don’t know, cause the market euphoria? By almost any measurement, Goldman was a central, leading player in the subprime housing bubble story.

I love Taibbi. He always knows what’s up. Wish he had more time to write.

This one’s fun. It’s the Daily Show from last week mocking House Republicans for comparing their struggles against the tyranny of the Democrats to the struggles of the reformists in Iran.

Okay, back to the dead serious.

That Pesky Little Thing Called An “Election”
georgia10, Daily Kos

Today, 76% of Americans support a public option for all on health care.

So, to all the Democrats who claim that they don’t have the “votes” to pass a public option or that they need Republican support to reform health care, this is just a friendly reminder that the American voters have already weighed the John McCain/GOP plan. They rejected it in 2008, and more than 3 out of 4 Americans reject it today.

In other words, to wobbly Democrats wringing their hands over sacrificing real change at the crumbling alter of “bipartisanship,” to those who worship politics over principle and to those who act as if their constituents are the Republican minority in Congress whining about “socialism” rather than the American majority from coast to coast wishing for a public option, election have consequences.

A righteous rant, though it’s not tagged as one.

GOP Rhetoric On A Downward Spiral: The Political Costs of Ugly
Steve Singiser

One of the most important ingredients of Obama’s political success has been the GOP’s tendency to completely lose their marbles dealing with the President.

That tendency seems to be escalating, not abating, as time has gone on.

What you should be listening to

John O’Callaghan Featuring Sarah Howells, Find Yourself, Cosmic Gate Remix
A State of Trance 2009 by Armin Van Buuren

The book I’m still reading, Viral Spiral, (yeah, I’m an idiot slow reader. Say a prayer for me for when I get to grad school) got a little more interesting in the past few pages, namely because instead of talking about the history of the commons movement, there was a recounting of philosophical disputes between Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation. Now, to many people on the internet, this is old news. But to me, this is all very new and interesting, and I’m most interested in the topic because of the political implications of the work of the commons movement.

I don’t really have the know-all, space, or will power to give you all the context neccessary to figure out what’s going on here, but basically, there are critics of Creative Commons that perceive licensing of cultural content, regardless of what the license’s intent is, is wrongfooted. I really enjoyed this passage that was reprinted in Viral Spiral:

Dear Inhabitants of the ‘legal’ Commons,

Greetings ! This missive arrives at your threshold from the proverbial
Asiatic street, located in the shadow of an improvised bazaar, where
all manner of oriental pirates and other dodgy characters gather to
trade in what many amongst you consider to be stolen goods. We call
them ‘borrowed’ goods. But a difference in the language in which one
talks about things (’stolen’ vs, ‘borrowed’) is a also a measure of
the distance between two different worlds.

You can only steal something if it is owned by someone in the first
place. If things are not ‘owned’ but only held in custody, then they
can only be ‘borrowed’ as opposed to being stolen. So what you call a
‘pirated’ DVD is what we would call a DVD ‘borrowed’ from the street,
and the price we pay for it is equivalent, or at least analogous to an
incremental subscription to the great circulating public library of
the Asiatic street.

We address this, written in the precincts of that library, to all you
who enjoy the salubrious comfort of the legal commons, especially the
one that calls itself ‘creative’. We have occasionally stepped into
your enclosures, and have fond memories of our forays. However, our
sojourns in your world have of necessity had to be brief. Before long,
we have been asked about our provenance, our intent, our documents.
There has rarely been enough paper for us to prove that we had the
right of way.

We appreciate and admire the determination with which you nurture
your garden of licences. The proliferation and variety of flowering
contracts and clauses in your hothouses is astounding. But we find
the paradox of a space that is called a commons and yet so fenced in,
and in so many ways, somewhat intriguing. The number of times we had
to ask for permission, and the number of security check posts we had
to negotiate to enter even a corner of your commons was impressive.
And each time we were at an exit we were thoroughly searched, just in
case we had not pilfered something, or left some trace of a noxious
weed by mistake into your fragile ecosystem. Sometimes, we found that
when people spoke of ‘Common Property’ it was hard to know where the
commons ended and where property began.

Most of all, we were amazed by the ingenuity (and diligence) you
display in upholding the norm that mandates that unless something
had been named explicitly as part of the ‘commons’ by it’s rightful
owner, it is somehow out of bounds to everyone else. Hitherto, our
understanding of the word you use, ‘the commons’, had suggested to us
that it indicated a space where people could take according to their
desires and contribute according to their capacities. This implied a
relationship essentially between people, founded on a more or less
taken for granted ethic of reciprocity, in the sense that what goes
around, eventually comes around. However, in the space you designate
as ‘commons’, we found that the rule is – take in accordance to the
label on the thing that you encounter, and give according to the
measure of the licence you prefer.

This indicated that a relationship between people, was somehow
replaced by a relationship between people and the things that these
people owned, inherited, or had created. It meant being told that we
could access something only if the owner said we could. This meant
that the song or the story or the idea that had no label on it was not
for the taking. We have to admit that this did feel a bit suffocating,
because it was a bit like rationing the air you breathe according to
whether or not you had the right to breathe freely.

Strangely, the capacity to name something as ‘mine’, even if in
order to ’share’ it, requires a degree of attainments that is not in
itself evenly distributed. Not everyone comes into the world with the
confidence that anything is ‘theirs’ to share. This means, that the
‘commons’ in your parlance, consists of an arrangement wherein only
those who are in the magic circle of confident owners effectively
get a share in that which is essentially, still a configuration of
different bits of fenced in property. What they do is basically effect
a series of swaps, based on a mutual understanding of their exclusive
propreitary rights. So I give you something of what I own, in exchange
for which, I get something of what you own. The good or item in
question never exits the circuit of property, even, paradoxically when
it is shared. Goods that are not owned, or those that have been taken
outside the circuit of ownership, effectively cannot be shared, or
even circulated.

Where does this leave those who have no property to begin with?
Perhaps, with even less than what they might have in a scenario
where there was some comfort in being able to make do with bits and
pieces broken off, copied and patched together and then circulated,
essentially by people who had no prior claim to cultural property or
patrimony. You see, we undertook our education in the public library
of the street, in the archive of the sidewalk. Here, our culture, came
to us in the form of faded and distressed copies, not all wrapped and
ribboned with licenses. We took what we could, when we could, where we
could. Had we waited to take what we were permitted to ’share’ in, we
would never have gotten very far, because no one would have recognized
our worth as ’shareholders’. Our attainments were not built with the
confidence that comes from knowing that you have a right to own what
you know, and a duty to know what you own.

Your ‘commons’ is not a place that we can share in easily. Because,
often, when you ask us for what we ‘own’, we have to turn away from
your enquiring gaze. We own very little, and the little that we own
is itself often under dispute, because no one has bothered to keep a
detailed enough record of provenances. In these circumstances, if we
had listen to your stipulation to share only that which we own, hardly
anything would have been passed around. And for life to continue,
things have to pass around. So we share a lot of things that we have
never owned. They are ‘borrowed’.

You call this piracy. Perhaps it is piracy. But we have to think of
consequences. The consequences of absences of the infrastructures
that make a culture of sharing that is also a culture of legality
possible. In the absence of those infrastructures, we have to rely on
other mechanisms. When you do not have a public library, you have to
invent one on the street, with all the books that you can muster, with
everything you can beg,or borrow. Or steal.

All we ask, dear inhabitants of the ‘legal’ commons, is for you to let
us be. To be a little cautious before you condemn us. A world without
our secret public libraries would be a poorer world. It would be a
world in which very few people read very few books, and only those who
could own things were the ones who could share them. It would also
mean a world in which, eventually, very few people write books. So
instead of more, there would in the end be less culture to go around.
The more you own, the less you can share.

All we ask is for a little time. It has not yet been conclusively
proven that the culture of ‘borrowing’ which you happen to call
‘piracy’ has only negative consequences for the production of culture.
It has also not yet been proven that one must necessarily read
negative consequences for culture from negative consequences for the
balance sheets of the culture industry. Until such time that this is
done, please let us be.

Learn about us by all means if you must, argue with us by all means,
but do not rush to destroy the wilderness we inhabit. We admire your
carefully cultivated garden. We know it is not easy for you to let us
enter that space. We understand and respect that. We do not ask to
be appreciated in return for the fact that we prefer hiding in the
undergrowth of culture. All we ask for is the benevolence of your
indifference. That will do for now.

We remain, yours

Denizens of Non Legal Commons, and those who travel to and from them.
Based on discussions among: Shaina Anand, Namita Malhotra, Paul Keller, Lawrence Liang, Bjorn Wijers, Patrice Riemens, Monica Narula, Rasmus Fleischer, Palle Torsson, Jan Gerber, Sebastian Lütgert, Toni Prug, Vera Franz, Konrad Becker & Tabatabai

I think this passage sums up a different kind of feeling people can have when it comes to the concept of property. I’ve been trying to nail down how I feel about private property for a long time now, and I’ve wavered in my commitment to its eventual eradication; this passage allowed me to reaffirm my ideal of freedom, which is exclusive of property.

It’s June 16. We are coming up on the summer solstice. And yet, I’m walking around outside in two longsleeve shirts, a longsleeve jacket, and corduroy pants. WTF is going on?!?!

I don’t know about you, but this is really starting to freak me out. I feel like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky (tried to find the clip, sorry, not available). Last summer, all we had was blazing day after blazing day, with drout conditions for its entirety. This year, we’ve had tons (I mean tons) of rain, and I think we’ve managed maybe one-half of one day in the blaze. It’s insane. One weather man up here has been quoted as saying that this might be the year we have no summer at all. Imagine that. No summer? I thought global warming was supposed to give us no winter.

I spent the entire winter suffering through ridiculously cold day after ridiculously cold day. Just relive my facebook status updates through December, January, February, and March. You’ll see. But I got through it. I got through it thinking about, ahh, the warm days of summer are just around the corner. It was like a mini pep talk everyday. And now, it’s the freaking summer, and I’ve got high temperatures of 66 degrees fahrenheit. Awesome.

I reached the breaking point today when I was walking down to the post office in Danville to purchase 99 stamps with a $44.00 check (they actually gave me 100, I couldn’t talk them into giving me 44 cents in change from a check transaction). I took a good long sniff of the air. It felt familiar, felt warm. It felt like–vacation. What vacation?, I thought. I know–the f*#!-ing beach! It feels like the beach because the sun is really hot, you can feel it burning the skin (especially since I’m so white), but there is a continuous cool breeze, cooling you down lest you should feel inclined to sloth around in oppressive heat and go running from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned vehicle.

You readers are probably thinking, ‘dude, Mike, chillout, man–you should be happy there isn’t oppressive weather conditions. Bask in the chill weather while you can.’ No. This isn’t natural. And I don’t like things that aren’t natural. Plus, given the weather, I’m inclined to sit outside on my less than optimal porch, cracking open cold-one after cold-one. It makes me want to drink outside. At least when it’s hot, you don’t want to be outside. And the only other place I can drink alone is in my basement, which is wholly depressing, and makes me look like an especially high-profile loser, especially when I tell you all about it via this post.

With all this in mind, let’s turn to what I’ve been reading / following today:

Climate change odds much worse than thought
David Chandler, MIT News Office

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.

[...]

While the outcomes in the “no policy” projections now look much worse than before, there is less change from previous work in the projected outcomes if strong policies are put in place now to drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions. Without action, “there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated,” Prinn says. “This increases the urgency for significant policy action.”

Looks like it’s about time we did something.

Will the Health Industry Derail Obama’s Reforms?
Various Authors, Washington Post

The GOP’s Empathy Problem
kos, Daily Kos

The GOP’s hostility toward empathy, inherent in just about everything they do — from starving government, to an aggressive and destructive foreign policy — is predicated on a proud and arrogant dismissal of the wants, needs, and customs of anyone unlike them. So Obama is a moron for trying to understand Islam, ACORN is dangerous because they engage in community organizing, taxes are bad because it redistributes wealth, and blah blah blah blah. Go down the list — every conservative position is predicated on selfishness and lack of give-a-shit for other people.

The problem for conservatives is that ultimately, the rest of the country disagrees, including its largest growing demographics. And it’s hard to win elections when you are so far outside the American mainstream on such a key value.

Public Option Action Alert: Make the HELP Committee Hold Firm
mcjoan, Daily Kos

Basically, we are on the brink of losing the public option, which negates any real health reform. We might as well jump off a cliff because we wasted all this time and effort, and you know I hate wasting time.

What Happens if Obama Loses the Left?
buhdydharma, Daily Kos

But the Issue-Left?

Oh, they are not happy at all!

And there are PLENTY of them.

There are the Financial Issue People, who…for some unknown reason….object to giving away hundreds of Billions of dollars to corporate interests and the bankers who crashed the economy.

While allowing those same bankers to keep kicking REGULAR people…. people who don’t have Lobby, regular people who don’t “Own The Senate” …. out of their homes. Billions for crooks, nothing for The People.

Obama is losing them. and is about to let watered down regulations go through that will lose more of them.

I agree. That’s me. But I’m still a team player. I’ve always been leary of Obama’s moderate stances on issues that he should be comfortable in taking a liberal stance on. Stupid Edwards…

There is a lot in the news. One, we’ve got Iran in a mess. And two, we’ve got some real idiots compromising away real health reform. Three, we’ve got some real idiots compromising away on regulations that could save us from another recession like this one in the near future. Enjoy!

High Definition Democracy
georgia10, Daily Kos

The concept of citizen-selected leadership itself is ancient, but we are witnessing today the latest chapter in how technology is strengthening that democracy, one byte at a time.

One need look no further than the 140-character updates streaming in from Iran on Twitter, the photostreams pouring in on Flickr, and the blossoming Facebook pages to understand and appreciate the revolutionary effect social media has had on how civilizations engage in and react to democracy.

[...]

But the internet provides something more. Where print, radio and TV have permitted political and community leaders to “get their messages” out to the masses, they are largely one-dimensional methods of communication. With the internet, however, we are seeing for the first time how multi-dimensional technology allows not just for the amplification of a “message” by those at the top, but it also allows for the creation of sub-messages, anti-messages, and other reactions by the masses.

In other words, we have moved from the era of citizen passivity – reading or watching or hearing about current events – to the era of citizen proactivity, where individuals are empowered to opine on, report on, dispute, support, or organize around those current events.

Iran’s Day of Anguish
Roger Cohen

Ahmadinejad won as the Interior Ministry was sealed, opposition Web sites were shut down, text messages were cut off, cell phones were interrupted, Internet access was impeded, dozens of opposition figures were arrested, universities were closed and a massive show of force was orchestrated to ram home the result to an incredulous public.

Overnight, a whole movement and mood were vaporized, to the point that they appeared a hallucination.

For more Iran analysis, see this: Khamenei: The Power Behind the President.

Social Networks Spread Iranian Influence Online
Brad Stone & Noam Cohen, New York Times

Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential elections on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.

On Twitter, reports and links to photos from a peaceful mass march through Tehran on Monday, along with accounts of street fighting and casualties around the country, have become the most popular topic on the service worldwide, according to Twitter’s published statistics.

This is why the internet is amazing. If you aren’t engaging online, you aren’t doing as much as you can to make this world a better place for regular people.

What the President had to say:

Obama and the Politics of Short Memories
E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

As long as the global economy was crumbling, business held back and even welcomed the infusion of hundreds of billions of government dollars to prop up the system. Business leaders, like everyone else, were frightened to death. They welcomed Big Government’s exertions to keep the banks alive and gin up consumer purchasing power.

It is an odd tribute to the short-term success of Obama’s recovery effort that the business lobbies now feel free to return to the old-time religion of bashing government and singing the praises of the unfettered marketplace. You might expect the corporate guys to show a little gratitude to the government that bailed them out. But that’s never been their way. They’d rather pretend that the past nine months were a bad dream.

[...]

The Obama administration, which has largely had things its own way so far, would do well to take this declaration of war seriously. Until now, Obama has been able to occupy the broad middle ground of American politics. Many who were unhappy with how aggressive the government had to be to get the economy rolling nevertheless accepted the need for Washington to act boldly.

Stay the Course
Paul Krugman, New York Times

The debate over economic policy has taken a predictable yet ominous turn: the crisis seems to be easing, and a chorus of critics is already demanding that the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration abandon their rescue efforts. For those who know their history, it’s déjà vu all over again — literally.

[...]

To sum up: A few months ago the U.S. economy was in danger of falling into depression. Aggressive monetary policy and deficit spending have, for the time being, averted that danger. And suddenly critics are demanding that we call the whole thing off, and revert to business as usual.

Those demands should be ignored. It’s much too soon to give up on policies that have, at most, pulled us a few inches back from the edge of the abyss.

He just explains it so well.

And some health care videos for you to enjoy; the first is Obama speaking passionately to the dumb AMA, and the second is Howard Dean firing back against the stupid co-op compromise.

“I’m clinically depressed.”

This is never good news to you when it comes from one of your best friends because it feels like you failed.

“You sucked so much at being a friend that now I need to take happy pills.”

Now, that’s not the real reason that my friend is depressed, it is, he claims, because he hates this area–Central PA, the Central Susquehanna River Valley, Selinsgrove, Sunbury, Shamokin Dam, Northumberland, etc. Frankly, I think he just hates living at home. — And maybe his friends. Just a little bit.

This hate for my home area that my friend has oozing from his soul stands in complete contrast with the way I feel about where we live, an appreciation gained from going away to college in another state. I very, very much am liking Central PA. It’s going to be hard for me to leave it for good, if that day ever occurs.

Why do I like it? Well, if you throw out all the obvious negatives associated with less dense living, this area is great. It’s beautiful, it’s diverse (yeah, I know you’re wondering about this claim–I’ll explain later), it’s good weather, it’s nice people, it’s untapped.

What gets me the most is the beauty of the place. When you grow up in one area, you tend to take the geography and architecture for granted. In Central PA, we’ve got the second oldest river in the world, the Susquehanna River. I just happen to live at about the most beautiful spot in the river valley, where the North and West Branches intersect as they make their way down to Harrisburg and the Chesapeake. The river provides. It shapes our communities in ways my generation ceased to understand, and it’s been very revelatory to rediscover all that it means to the communities here in my adventures throughout the five counties we serve at my AmeriCorps site.

In Central PA, we also have mountains, and as such, we should probably classify the region as Appalachia; there is definitely more in common with other Appalachian communities than with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or South Central PA. The mountains are pretty. I don’t know what more you could ask for in terms of natural beauty–river and mountains and rolling hills and valleys. Now, if we could just get rid of that power plant…

We long for vacations not only to escape from our everyday reality, but also to find some new beauty to hold in awe. I’ve done my share of traveling around the US and the World (Kim hates when I talk about where I’ve been, so I’ll shut up), and I can safely say that there isn’t really anyplace that’s any prettier that what we have going on here.

Believe it or not, Central PA isn’t as homogenous as you might think. Sure, we’ve got no certifiably large ethnic minority populations. But in my travels and adventures around the area, I’ve seen that it’s impossible to generalize about the kind of people in five counties, or even a single county; it’s impossible to even to say that people living in Danville are the same as the people living in Riverside. The people ’round here are ueber-proud of their communities. Part of this legacy comes from the fact that many in the older generation remember how the towns were very self-contained–that everything you needed to live a successful life could be accessed in each town. This was also a product of the geographic isolation each town encountered. It’s just not easy to travel from Shamokin to Sunbury. Don’t laugh too hard, you locals. Just humor me.

Now of course there is a ton of intermingling and all the people in each town welcome those from other towns. There’s no ill will, but these boundaries and roots persist to this day, because in many cases, the populations have dwindled, instead of expanding. I’ll be interested in seeing what the 2010 census has to say on this front.

I’ve got nothing against Westminster, MD, where McDaniel College, my alma mater is home to. No, in fact, my appreciation for all things local, cultural, natural and people-al has grown universally. I feel like the change in perspective to MD for four years, and then another subsequent change in perspective back to Central PA, helped me appreciate Westminster, my former home away from home, even more. In my visits throughout this past academic year, I began to realize that Westminster has a lot going for it, from all kinds of measures.

During these last few years of really coming into my own as a person, I have acquired an ability to appreciate the beauty in everthing and everyone. I love everyone. I’ve learned that to truly appreciate home, you have to get over the desire to find the greener grass. Often, you’ll find you’re right where you want to be, the best place to be is where you are. This is why we have such warm feelings about home.

But unfortunately, some of us like my good friend feel a pervasive emptiness when we think of home. To get rid of this, I say, you need a change of perspective and perhaps scenery, if only for a short time. Life isn’t as bad or unfair as you think.

I found tons of great stuff out there on the net today, mainly health care related, which is great because I’m on a health care kick right now, as is much of the political world. Have fun today!

Tobacco Regulation, at Last
New York Times Editorial

After more than a decade of struggle — and countless smoking-related deaths — the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill on Thursday that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. The House approved a similar bill in April, also by an overwhelming margin. The days when this rogue industry could inflict its harmful products on Americans with impunity are drawing to a close.

The Big Hate
Paul Krugman, The New York Times

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Read the whole thing.

Obama’s Team to Rival
Charlie Cook, National Journal

A third of the way into his first year as president, Obama has established a White House operation as impressive as any before; in fact, you can’t throw a rock in a West Wing hallway without hitting someone who would otherwise be among the most experienced people in any previous White House. In some ways, Obama has discovered that effective governing requires a blend of the strongest elements of his campaign with the seasoning, experience, and awareness of the pitfalls that hurt previous presidencies.

This is for all of you presidential personality analysts out there. I’m pointing at you, Kim. =P

Eugene Robinson is a must read today
teacherken, Daily Kos

It’s about the shooting in the museum. It’s a good piece. Read it.

Ten Pounds of Stupid in a Five Pound Bag
Meteor Blades, Daily Kos

Previously, the denialists in and out of Congress have pretty much stuck to the idea that we don’t know if the human-caused production of greenhouse gases will have grave environmental consequences. But now it’s as if Senator Jim Inhofe has taken over the Republican Party and is saying, we don’t care if there are any consequences, we’re going to prohibit the government from taking them into consideration.

They’re saying that you’re either with health reform, or you’re against it. And if you’re against it, you can’t expect to be taken care of in the final legislation. They’re not going to save your seat at the table while you’re trying to burn down the room. And the AMA, it seems, got the message.

There Will Be Blood
Lorenzo Carcaterra, True/Slant