When Disney redesigned Tomorrowland back in 1995, they looked for inspiration at future past with overblown Jetsons imagery and chrome, big neon and old-fashioned Buck Rogers rockets:

The future is growing old all over Disney’s magic kingdom. From the film lot to the Epcot theme park to the real-life town that the company calls Celebration, Disney has largely given up on imagining a new future. […] The shift is profound for a company whose founder was one of postwar America’s great popularizers of technology. And it is a reflection of the ennui that many Americans, at century’s end, feel about the chips and bits in which they are immersed.

Journalism is not a profession. That is one of the first things they taught me in Brandeis’s journalism program. Professions are closed shops patrolled by gatekeepers and licensing boards. Professions demand esoteric knowledge and specialized education. All journalism requires is command of the written language.

So “real” journalists, those who take their jobs seriously, believe strongly that journalism is an essential public good, a vital component of a democracy, and its very democratic nature, free of gatekeepers, is one of its greatest assets. Because of that, serious journalism involves complex ethics, frequent moral judgments, and large amounts of discretion. There are plenty of pundits and commentators and hacks who are not real journalists, but the real guys believe these things.

So along comes the web, along comes a new breed of citizen journalist. Its easier for people, especially those with some computer skills, to mine data and find connections and reveal secrets that in previous times would have been left safely buried. But these new citizen journalists are often inexperienced, often looking for the quick break, often have not taken the time to ponder the ethics and the morals and the discretion. A little while back tech blog Engadget published a huge “scoop” about delays in Apple’s product offerings. Stock markets moved on the news. Chaos was caused. It was a hoax. The tiniest bit of vetting, the smallest phone call or email follow-up would have revealed the hoax and stopped the virtual presses, but Engadget was more excited about their scoop than they were worried about printing the truth.

This is going to happen a lot in the next few years. There are going to be a lot of mistakes.

And so on the one hand I’m excited to say I’ve had a hand in an interesting new website that is a somewhat unique tool for the aspiring citizen journalist. But at the same time, of course, I’m worried about those who might abuse the data we’re publishing, data gleaned from the “DC Madam” and her phone records. Some of the calls were business, some were private. Some are to restaurants, and to travel agents, and to her mother. And some are to big-name capital hill staffers. And some are to small-time businessmen and random Joes.

Continue reading “The DC Madam’s phone list and what it means to be a journalist”

I have every episode of This American Life ever broadcast save about 20, all nicely organized as MP3 files. Something like 17 of those that I don’t have are available on the website for purchase at 95 cents each. What a great way to support a show I love, I thought! Then the links opened in iTunes, and the vendor was Audible.com, which means crap quality and annoying DRM. Well so much for trying to do the right thing.

On the west coast the leader in outing equipment is Recreational Equipment Inc., or REI. On the east coast there is also a strong competitor in the form of Eastern Mountain Sports, or EMS. I figured EMS was a lesser supplier what with their smaller stores, and this impression was cemented when some marketing genius decided to dump the ubiquitous EMS name and mountain logo and replace it with the utterly ridiculous, vowel-free brand “ESTRN MNTN SPRTS.” If they had at least had the guts to drop the leading “E” I might have at least chuckled, as it is the god-awful new name makes me an EMS hater.

So when I found myself wandering into the new Harvard Square location and then being assisted by a knowledgeable salesperson and then purchasing a new pair of Keen sandals, my irrational hatred began to fade. The next day I realized that the spring clip on the right shoe was defective and not holding the laces tight. Today I wandered back into EMS with no receipt and the sandals on my feet and sought assistance. I was directed back to footwear, where the dude told me that they could get a replacement lace assembly from Keen or possibly swap out the shoes, but a better bet might be getting a sturdier spring clip. Where might I find one? Well, it seems that behind the front desk there is a kit chock full of buckles, fasteners, clips, and various other accouterments. We found the perfect clip for my shoes, I purchased two of them at 35 cents each, and the helpful salesman took my shoes apart right there at the counter and fitted them with the new clips. My new sandals with their sturdy new clips are awesome and I’m wearing them all the time.

So EMS rocks. They’re pretty much on par with REI. They sell a lot of the same high-quality clothing and equipment, their service is top-notch, and the staff is knowledgeable and helpful. I feel fairly comfortable recommending either of them at this point for general gear. Without additional experience I’d still have to say REI if you’re looking for any advice on, say, the sorts of camping supplies you need to buy to avoid hypothermia, or whatever. The other things you don’t get with EMS are the huge in-store selection of REI and the membership program that results in a fun year-end rebate check. On the other side, with EMS there are far more locations (Harvard Square for me, whereas the closest REI is in Fenway) and perhaps slightly better prices, not to mention an atmosphere that isn’t quite so overwhelming.

As a prelude to the (no doubt awful) slew of decisions coming down from the Supreme Court today, Prof. Walter Dellinger offers a five minute crash-course on the constitution which ends with this simple — yet strangely elusive in government — explanation of the problems with “strict construction”:

Senators especially like it when a nominee says a judge’s role is just to be an “umpire.” But broad constitutional phrases are different from sports rules, so a judge would be like an umpire only if the game — instead of having a strike zone and a set number of balls, strikes, and outs — provided instead that “each batter shall have a fair chance to hit the ball” and “each team shall have a reasonably equal opportunity to score runs.” Key language of the Constitution is that broad, meaning that men and women appointed to the bench must necessarily exercise judgment. Which is, of course, why they are called judges, and not umpires.

Stories from the “Iraqi Blogodrome” on the most recent Global Voices Iraq round-up contain some interesting thoughts, including one post suggesting that the country would be better served by a military government, at least in the short term, to bring peace and stability with a firm hand. Another less political post is a bit more uplifting:

I once paid a fortune in an Italian restaurant to eat samples of few truffles brought all the way from Tuscany in Italy, and were served to me in such a fuss as if I was about to eat pieces of gold!

Oh my dear Iraq, if only they’ve tasted your muddy truffles that we used to buy in big sacs and spent ages to clean.

We the people of Iraq are exactly like our crops! Rough, tough, harsh and scarred, but once you open them up, you see the real flavour of kindness, generosity and genuineness.