JournalSquared

The Google+ Guide

2011-06-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

The now obligatory 'Epic Bros' friend circle.

When you've had and used a Google account for long enough, you get familiar with online conversations starting this way:

duders: oooh
duders: my friend just invited me to google+
duders: it looks like some wacky social share integratotron thing
madmage: lol wheres our invite?

Google has one upped itself again, following the release of Google Music Beta (invite only), with its new social networking, posting, sharing, commenting, video and text chat all in one app, minimally called Google+ (Google Plus). Forget the Mac v. PC ads, hand in hand with Google Music, Documents, Gmail, YouTube, Android, the Chrome OS & browser, and countless other smaller yet innovative apps, Google+ is setting the stage for an online world where you're either Google, or you're not.

* Update - while writing this, Google enabled invites. *
* Second Update - after publishing this, Google disabled invites! O Google, u so funny. *

While the app itself still has a few kinks to work out (like all the disabled invite buttons, leading co-workers to curse you for inadvertently trolling them with fake hope), it is clearly much farther along than either Wave or Buzz were at release. Although already considered as "Facebook without the Facebook" or "Wave 2 meets Buzz," neither description is terribly apt. Is it social networking with other previous Google projects bundled in? Yes. Is it a walled garden? Not at all. Is it going to fill up with Zynga games, comment flamewars, creepy lurking former classmates, or flashmob party pages? Not likely. And that's pretty obviously by design.

Circles

The main concept behind the way Google+ organizes your social network is that of degrees: your boss is almost certainly not your bro, and your dad might not be so thrilled about sharing a wall with your baby daddy either. People tend not to organize their social lives via geography, or by whoever granted them a friend request without vouching for them either. We organize in circles of friends and degrees of friendship and association; whether by family, work, interests, love or mutual vendettas.

You add and communicate with various friends by adding them to Circles, each of which is easily customizable within the web interface. Rename, add or delete them however you like. One concern is the sheer depth of information Google has access to in order to build this web of association - drawing from my Gmail contacts, old emails and Android phone contacts alone brought up 285 possible people to select from for possible connections in Google+. Each circle is easy to manage, with simple drag and drop functionality with the users' profile icons.

Putting ex-girlfriends in the same circle was a bad idea...

The front page looks fairly conventional as social networking layout goes, with your icon picture at the top left, followed on the left side by your Circles and GChat. A center well holds your (and presumably other users') posts. +1 buttons (GoogleLike was too long), comment and share functionality on posts is by now standard and present here.

The interior edit view is about as easy to use as clicking a mouse, and everything is in easy reach of the eyes... no hidden menus or obscure settings.

Derp Derpton... it's my given name.

One of the biggest draws for me though was the ease of photo and video sharing, in coordination with Google Picasa and Instant Uploads from your phones and Android devices. The photo and video viewer is slick as well, based on the Picasa Viewer. (See slideshow at the end for more pics).

Two other interesting features are pretty obviously descended from Wave: Huddle and Hangout. Hangout, for the web interface, allows you to have live video chat with any number of Google+ friends... this looks seriously awesome. Sadly:

My mic and camera were confiscated as part of my WoW 12-step program...

The mobile version of Google+ is far more stripped down, with only Stream, Huddle (instant group chat), Photos and Profile functionality built in. (Pic in slideshow).

Finally, because it can't all be fan boy gushing, there are some serious hurdles Google+ faces to succeed. First, the 800-pound, 700 million user gorilla in the room: Facebook. Google can't rely on just soaking up everyone NOT on Facebook (like me), it has to draw dual citizens or straight up defections.

One way to do this is to pound away at a message that Google+ is for grown-ups, Facebook is for kids and grandparents playing Farmville. Sounds harsh, but otherwise Google+ risks going the way of Wave and Jaiku... or worse: MySpace. Also: please Google, for the love of Burning Man never allow data-mining spam schemes masquerading as games ever touch this beautiful creation of yours.

Second, Google really needs to go all in on this as a flagship product that - along with Google Music and other cloud services - will actually make the Chromebook a viable alternative to Apple's iPad. They can't second guess or ditch this if the going gets rough or the bad reviews come in.

Third, in my opinion, this really has a chance to showcase the next generation ideas that descended from Wave and other earlier projects, as well as spur better projects by competitors - Facebook's persistent privacy woes and walled garden college campus atmosphere, Twitter's relentless chatter (#justkidding) and exhibitionist Congress member spam, Apple's overpriced grandeur and incompatibility with anything but Apple devices... I'd love to see ideas spread.

Lest we forget, with great Google-fu comes great temptation for abuse. The onus is firmly on the users themselves to guard and be safe with their information online. With some tools and platforms this can be extremely difficult, not to mention frustrating, but it looks as though - for the time being - Google+ has a host of privacy and security settings that are easy to access, manage and understand.

This is, without a doubt, a social network for Google users first... I'm going to savor these early days much as I savored Reddit before the Fall of Digg. And with that, I'll simply close by paraphrasing Chevy Chase: I'm on Google+, and you're not.

Champagne and Celebration at Ground Zero Following Death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

Powerful men are well advised not to use violence,
For violence has a habit of returning;
Thorns and weeds grow wherever an army goes,
And lean years follow a great war.

A general is well advised
To achieve nothing more than his orders:
Not to take advantage of his victory.
Nor to glory, boast or pride himself;
To do what is dictated by necessity,
But not by choice.

For even the strongest force will weaken with time,
And then its violence will return, and kill it.

The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 30: Violence

Diane Massaroli stood out from those around her on Church Street in Lower Manhattan, a soft-spoken woman with a patient stance, carrying a portrait of her husband, Michael. On that Tuesday morning nearly ten years ago, as she was preparing her children for school, her phone rang. She was unable to answer it in time, and missed the call. It had been her husband, Michael Massaroli, a VP for Cantor Fitzgerald, who was working on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center.

Last night Diane made her way to Ground Zero and stood by quietly while people gathered to celebrate the news that Osama bin Laden, widely recognized as the architect of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been killed in an operation conducted by US Navy SEALs and authorized by President Obama.

"We've been waiting nine years, seven months, and twenty days for this day," Diane said last night. "I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime, but I can only hope we're able to open a new chapter because of it."

Her demeanor in this bittersweet moment, as that of many 9/11 victim's families, seemed in direct contrast to the cheering, chanting and singing of the largely youthful crowd. Periodic chants of "U-S-A" and "Obama got Osama" cycled in between the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner or God Bless America, the popping of champagne corks and the waving of signs and flags. It was this generation of 18-25 year olds who defined these first, sudden outpourings of raw emotion across the country.

After a nearly 10-year hunt, the word that Osama bin Laden had been killed was met with spontaneous scenes of jubilation by many Americans. Given the often xenophobic character of the protests that had opposed plans for the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero just a year before, people can be forgiven the assumption that these rallies would be more of the same; they were anything but. Few there had ever sung the national anthem except to mouth the words at professional sporting events. They sang off key, forgetting some of the words, mangling others. But that didn't matter tonight. They waved whatever American flags they could find (including one oddly with a portrait of Marilyn Monroe), and climbed traffic light posts, while others, falling back to concert traditions, crowd-surfed. Children of first generation Middle Eastern immigrants, Latinos, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, whites, Muslims, Jews -- and even the odd Canadian -- all shared one thing in common that night: overwhelming relief and joy that Osama bin Laden, the one who masterminded the destruction that lead to the death of over 3,000 people on that very spot nearly ten years ago, had finally gotten what was coming to him.

More often than not, they had not lost a loved one at Ground Zero, but you could tell from people's faces who had and who had not. Many though, either were or knew others in active duty military service in Iraq or Afghanistan. For the most part, those gathered were of a generation who can scarcely remember the world that existed before September 11th, and yet have had their entire being shaped by that event and the subsequent wars. For them, far more than the older observers and participants, this was not an end, but a beginning finally made possible.

The diversity of those present was in sharp contrast to the divisions and preconceptions that have been built up and propagated over the past ten years, and what it means to American society. We have been divided for far too long. That division has often been tinged with racism and bigotry, questions of patriotism and accusations of treason, the mistrust and labeling of others, to the point where it is inseparable in the minds of many from the people taking either side. If you agree with one idea, you are a traitor and a terrorist sympathizer; if you agree with the other, you are bigot and fascist.

No one present that night, perhaps, had challenged those preconceptions more than Lieutenant Daniel Choi. The son of a Korean-American Baptist minister, Choi graduated West Point in 2003 and served in the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq. In March 2009, he came out as homosexual on The Rachel Maddow Show. As a result, he was discharged from the Army and began active opposition to the policy of "don't ask, don't tell." After its repeal, his commission was reinstated and in December 2010, he submitted a request to re-enlist.

Last night at Ground Zero, Lieutenant Choi climbed a traffic light above the crowd in full military uniform and lead those assembled in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, to rousing cheers. If that in itself offends some, then I'm not sure what to say, except that this was not a rally of bigots, shouting simply to satisfy some twisted quest for racial or religious vengeance. I fault no one for private misgivings about how they wish to mark this event, but I've seen more misplaced patriotism in a bar on St. Patrick's Day than there that night, but despite this, the Internet critics are already in overdrive.

In editorials, on blog posts, in online communities and comments sites, many have decried the celebrations of the death of Osama bin Laden as inappropriate, barbaric or worse. The sentiment is described as a kind of morbid, visceral act, and the people who express joy at his end as some form of sociopath. A celebration of vengeance, not justice. Offensive. Jingoistic.

When I sent my 81-year old father the videos above, he said it sounded just like V-J Day in 1945 that he remembered from when he was 15. Watching the night unfold in front of the big hole in the ground where the World Trade Center once loomed, I thought of that famous Times Square photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse while dipping her in his arms. That moment came on the heels of a 6-year long war in which over 60 million people were killed, including as many as 200,000 or more from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone. If any celebration might be considered morbid revelry, V-J Day would make a far stronger contender, but it isn't. Those celebrations marked the final end of the most destructive war in human history, as well as the evil men who began it. Of all the appropriate times for mass celebration, this is one of them.

Now, for anyone who has never wished ill upon another human being ever, or has never lifted one finger or paid one cent that's been used to harm another, you have to be a virgin saint (and likely, you're also evading taxes). But for the rest of us, hearing that THE person who caused so much pain and trauma to our city and to the people in it has finally met a well-deserved and inglorious end IS something to be welcomed. Pass the champagne.

Let's not forget how others in the world have commented on this. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said: "[bin Laden's] killing is an act of justice to those Kenyans who lost their lives and the many more who suffered injuries [in the Nairobi bombings]." From Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari: "We, like many people in the world, are delighted to see an end to his mentality and his devious ideology. Thousands of Iraqis were murdered and killed because of his ideologies." Similar statements have been made throughout the world, from Lebanon to Russia. In fact, the only statements expressing misgivings about his death are from the Pakistani Taliban, Hamas, and the Venezuelan government. Not surprising.

I want nothing more than for men like Dick Cheney to be wrong, that this is not "a war without end," with no possibility of peace, ever, because the alternative is nothing but the choice between nihilism and authoritarianism or the cynical comfort of recursive conspiracy theories. Real justice would be ridding the world of all evil, all war, all the horrors we've created. But I'll settle for this one moment right now.

So, as for Osama bin Laden, let him pass unmourned, a violent man whose violence returned, and killed him.

Addendum: One contrast that was immediately apparent in retrospect, but largely unremarked in the editorializing (myself included) over the tenor of the celebrations by ordinary people, was the precise lack of spectacle to Obama's statement regarding the event in comparison to President Bush's flamboyant 'Mission Accomplished' carrier landing exactly eight years ago on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The glory-hounding swagger, boasting and pride displayed in that 2003 speech was almost entirely absent from Obama's statement, and all the more remarkable given the nature of each: in 2003, the Iraq War had hardly begun, while the end of Osama bin Laden is quite definitive.

Speaking to my own father, who was an 11 year old New Yorker when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and 15 years old with an older brother in the Merchant Marine for both V-E Day, the news of Hitler's death and V-J Day, was also instructive. I asked him what people's reactions were to those events, and he said this:

My dad: "Oh, when people heard of Hitler's death, they went wild. This was followed by V-E Day and everyone I can remember around there at the time was celebrating in the streets. It was more subdued because, especially in Europe, soldiers figured they would be shipped off to the Pacific immediately. So a lot of people took Hitler's death in stride because the war wasn't really over."

Me: "How about V-J Day?"

My dad: "For V-J Day, everyone went crazy at the news of that. [World War Two] was a horrendous war, and we nearly damn well lost it, if Hitler hadn't been such a fat stupid fool, but we nearly lost it if a few things had been different. I was against the use of the atom bomb - I thought it could have been just as effective if we had demonstrated what we had off the coast or on a mountain - but generals at the time were expecting a million casualties if we had tried to invade Japan. And these were celebrations all over, in England as well as the US. People definitely celebrated Hitler's death - he was Hitler. And I think a lot of people have the same reaction to this now, and maybe see it as the end of the war in a way."

Me: "Someone on a site I read compared it to Star Wars where the Ewoks celebrate when the Death Star blew up."

My dad: "Oh sure. That's right. I think it was a lot like that where the things [Ewoks] cheered when the Death Star blew up. I think that's a good analogy."

BP's Gulf Oil Spill - This Land Is Your Land - taken down at request of WMG

2010-06-03T19:22:00.001-07:00

Update: So the ~~good~~ folks at Warner Music Group ~~gave me a scare there~~ have issued a DMCA take down notice for my video criticizing BP. ~~For ~45 minutes,~~ This video ~~was~~ is the subject of a DMCA take down notice regarding the use of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

I immediately filled out a counter-claim on a form made available through YouTube, and emailed the EFF should there be any need for crack legal defense teams to protect my rights.

I received an email from YouTube stating the video was not taken down:

from	Copyright Service
to		journalsquaredblog@gmail.com
date		Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:05 PM
subject		Re: [#652523809] YouTube Support
mailed-by		trakken.google.com

11:05 PM (32 minutes ago)

Hi there,

The video you posted is live and has not been removed by YouTube. If you
are having trouble playing your video please look at our Help Center for
additional information: http://help.youtube.com

Sincerely,

The YouTube Team

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: journalsquaredblog@gmail.com
Subject: YouTube Support

The use of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" falls under fair use as specified in 17 U.S.C. § 107 of copyright law, as it is plainly non-commercial political criticism of BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico due to the transformative nature on the work, notwithstanding quantity of work used.

It was reinstated and I was able to play the video, however, as of 12:00 AM ET, it remains blocked. The same version of the song appears here, unblocked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE

Woody Guthrie must be rolling over in his grave, for more reasons than I care to count.

Here is his original copyright notice for "This Land Is Your Land:"

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;

Sign was painted, it said private property;

But on the back side it didn't say nothing;

This land was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

I have followed up with a second video, here, set to "All You Fascists Bound to Lose."

Retirement Day

2010-03-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

My retirement plan currently consists of a small rowboat with no oars, pushed into the center of a large lake by my relations with me in it - grumpy-faced with arms crossed - to great fanfare.

In my imagination there is a marching band, too, though likely it will be someone younger cousin or nephew/niece poorly playing a lone trombone. The air is warm, but quickly turning to a crisp autumn chill as golfers on a nearby green take in their last putts before the weather turns. Overhead, gray clouds gather, prematurely ushering in nightfall. It's good weather for this.

That day I will awaken late, at a quarter past nine, and putter around the house briefly considering, then thinking the better of brewing some coffee. I've got it all planned. I am roughly seventy years old, my severe resolve to go through with this retirement unsoftened by the wisdom of anything older. I've run my course. Looking over the news that morning merely confirms my decision. The invitations have been sent. It's time.

There will be no health care, no Social Security, no reaping the reward of a working life - these will and do exist, but not for me - you shoot a horse that can no longer work. Broken but unbowed I will be escorted to the dock, sitting comfortably in the back of a sedan driven by a younger friend and accompanied by my partner (or wife if we bothered to get married) riding in the passenger seat. They will talk to each other, telling stories about me, believing that I can't hear a word of what they are saying. But due to that strange acoustic quality in the back seats of automobiles, I can hear all of it in stunning clarity, yet they can't make out a word of mine.

I allow myself the luxury of a frown.

As we arrive, the crowds have gathered. I am dressed warmly in a Carhartt jacket and pants, with New Balance sneakers and some sort of a hat I can pull down over the tops of my ears. Other than a small, half-eaten package of menthol cough drops, I am to be given no provisions. As I dismount the car, decades of well-wishers, friends, lovers, co-workers and adversaries alike all line my route to the small dock. In lieu of rose petals, they pelt me with dandelion heads. The trombonist plays a vague rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever.

The lake is nothing terribly daunting, but not anything one might go wading across. Small retirement communities and individual summer homes of the well-to-do dominate the coastline. This could be a glacial lake, formed eons ago at the end of the Younger Dryas period some 12,000 years prior, or this could be an enormous man-made drainage pond. Looking out across it, I haven't decided. This is where I grew up, where I belong, among the woods and the hills and the boulders being knocked over and developed into townhouses and quaint shopping centers. I step down into the boat by sitting on the edge of the dock, with my feet on its floor, and easing myself in onto the aft thwart.

The boat is a small wooden rowboat of classic construction, a sturdy Whitehall-style craft with good overall beam and moderate freeboard. The oak crosspieces are polished smooth but are otherwise unadorned or upholstered for seating, while the bronze oarlocks are purely ornamental at this stage.

I examine the craft with a cruel, seafaring eye and signal my approval.

The trombone dies off. Everyone gathers around. Family members cradle the various cats I've had over the years, holding their arms up and waving their paws at me. The cats and I find this to be a gesture of rather shallow inevitability. It occurs to me that people expect me to say something. But I don't say anything.

This is the longest part of the process: drifting slowly away from the dock toward the center of the lake. It has begun to drizzle. Most of my entourage has already turned to go, their voices now nothing more than happy whispers to each other as they walk back to their cars. A few linger, a surprising few - this brief revelation passes quickly.

I am left with myself. I am sitting in a rowboat with no oars, cast out into the center of a very large lake with no provisions and no hope of return. I have no amusements, no distractions, no books I plan on reading or projects I am obliged to complete. No burdens.

I look at the surface of the water over the side of the boat. The clear liquid trembles and ripples with the wind and the water droplets falling down upon it and into it, replenishing it. The beauty and simplicity there, just witnessing the elements play upon one another, wind and water, and around me the whole of the earth. I wait like this, each second staring in wonder at this small square foot of lake before me.

I wait, and time passes.

23 original thinkers who will shape 2010

2009-12-31T15:52:00.000-08:00

For me, as much as looking forward, the New Year is about looking backward and asking myself, "what if?"

What if, instead of demanding that air travelers throw out their shampoo bottles and take off their shoes, we approached airport security like we do data security? What if instead of a bank bail-out, de-regulation was rolled back? What if peer-to-peer file sharing was embraced by Big Content instead of fought tooth and nail? What if we invested as many resources, as much money and effort into technological, scientific and medical research as we did defense research?

What if we paid attention to the right people, instead of to the loudest people? Or those with the best ideas, not necessarily the most power?

Here's my list, in order relative to my compulsion for following what they're up to:

#1 - Bruce Schneier - cryptographer and computer security specialist. Beyond his research in computer security and cryptography, he understands exactly how it applies beyond its own realm, and to security policy - and life - more generally. In an otherwise uncertain, hysterical and self-serving world, Schneier provides a much needed dose of rational precaution, skepticism and analysis. http://www.schneier.com

#2 - The Google Trinity - Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt. In just ten years, Google has single-handedly redefined the Internet as an engine of communication and economic growth, and looks set to do the same for the mobile web and cloud computing. Whether you affectionately refer to them as the Goog or not so affectionately as Big Brother, if the hive mind had a triumvirate guiding and enabling it right now, it would be these three. http://www.google.com/

#3 - Steve Jobs - Apple. Not to be overshadowed, Apple has continued to be a force to be reckoned with on numerous fronts, largely thanks to the continued influence of Steve Jobs. Without a doubt the iPod and iPhone will be seen as the trend-setting machines of the early 21st century, much as Ford's Model T was at the outset of the last. Steve Jobs continues to have a way of captivating users on a mass scale. http://www.apple.com/

#4 - Wikileaks. Founded in December 2006 by Chinese dissidents, the site has one goal: to provide a secure, anonymous conduit for leakers of sensitive, classified and damning information about oppressive or corrupt governments and entities everywhere. By January 2010, their database has swelled to over 1.2 million documents. Currently, Wikileaks is overloaded and is soliciting donations to remain operational, if you are so inclined... http://wikileaks.org/

#5 - Matt Taibbi - reporter, Rolling Stone. Taibbi makes my list for a few reasons, including, according to Wikipedia: "In 2004, while Taibbi followed the democratic campaign of the 2004 US presidential election, he wore a gorilla suit in front of campaign staffers and took LSD at a major debate." He played pro-baseball in Moscow and then pro-basketball in Mongolia. He was kicked out of Uzbekistan in 1992 for writing critical stories about President Islam Karimov - you know, the guy who boils people he doesn't like alive. But more than anything, Taibbi makes the list as a person to pay attention to this year because he is lefty journalist who is intelligently calling out many of Obama's policies for what they are: a big fat sellout. http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/

#6 - Paul Krugman - Nobel Prize-winning economist and I-told-you-so'er. If you ever want to know what the liberal base in America feels about something, you just have to read Krugman's blog. Critical of both the compulsive deregulation of the Clinton years and the most recent corporate bail outs, his November 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal is a definite New Year's resolution read - if only because Krugman is one of the few thinkers out there who can still genuinely get away with calling himself one while keeping a straight face. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

#7 - Randall Munroe - cartoonist, xkcd. The web comic xkcd has become what the best comic should be: both a reflection of and a remedy for its audience's anxieties, dreams, curiosity and daily monotonies. But more than this, Randall Munroe (with an unspecified degree in physics and a predilection for standing around awkwardly at clubs and parties) teaches us things about math, the arts, physics, cosmology, relationships and computer science - all through the lens of little stick figure people. In a word, awesome. http://xkcd.com/

#8 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Preserving freedom of expression online is crucial to defending liberty in the real world; the two are dependent on each other. The EFF has been at the forefront of open content, free expression, individual rights and digital privacy issues at a time when there was little established legal precedent in a specifically digital setting. The arguments they advance and shape now will continue to be used in the century to come in online/Internet case law, just as arguments advanced by progressive lawyers in the early 20th century advanced our concept of how the First Amendment applies to individual speech. Well worth tracking. http://www.eff.org/

#9 - Jane Silber - Canonical. The break out Linux distribution of the last decade has to be the Debian-derived Ubuntu distro. With development funded by entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu became the hottest distro at a time when the old steadies of RedHat/Fedora and OpenSuse began to look stodgy in comparison. And while Shuttleworth was circling the globe promoting Ubuntu and other projects (often literally), it was Jane Silber as Chief Operating Officer for Canonical who kept the ship afloat. She is set to take over as Canonical CEO in March 2010, one month before the much anticipated version 10.04 is released. http://www.canonical.com/aboutus/team

#10 - Nomi Prins - author, It Takes a Pillage and Other People's Money. I tend to like hearing from anyone who goes against the grain - right wingers who support the President, left wingers who oppose him - because anything else simply does not require enough intellectual effort. Nomi Prins is one of those progressives who stuck to her principles despite the fact that Obama won the election, but deserves a nod not for that alone. http://www.nomiprins.com/

#11 - Neil deGrasse Tyson - astrophysicist and social butterfly. If there is anyone on this list I most want to tell: "You sir, are the man," it's him. A noted astrophysicist and rumored candidate for head of NASA, in his free time he solves Rubik's cubes on the Daily Show, spars with Stephen Colbert and debunks 2012 conspiracists, all with an incredible sense of humor. http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/

#12 - Anthony Bourdain - chef, traveler, street philosopher. More than just a cooking show host or food writer, Bourdain is a fantastic travel writer in the truest craftsman sense of the term, able to completely capture the seemingly mundane and common subjects before him and approach them each from the perspective of an adventurer. That sense of adventure stands out in his writing and his television show, No Reservations, such as filming on location in Lebanon as Israeli jets bombed Beirut in 2006...and deciding to keep filming the whole experience. An accomplished chef of over 28 years with an astounding depth of gourmet knowledge, Bourdain is anything but snobbish, and has an amazing love of all cuisine - especially peasant or local "street" food - that makes most foodies look prudish and juvenile by comparison. http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Anthony_Bourdain

#13 - Nate Silver - fivethirtyeight. If you track politics, you check fivethirtyeight. And if you check fivethirtyeight, you know that Nate Silver knows what he is talking about. A statistician originally working with baseball stats, he created his site in 2008 to track the Preseidential election cycle. And correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states - the exception was Indiana, which voted for a Democrat for the first time since 1964. Nate Silver is the one to watch for 2010 election stats.

#14 - Malalai Joya - the one exception to the "no politicians" rule. Malalai Joya is an Afghan MP who has been compared to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and was recently suspended from the Afghan Parliament for denouncing the presence of "warlords and war criminals" within the Afghan Parliament. Called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" by the BBC, Joya also took a major stand for women's rights when she publicly accused Afghan officials of "trying to use the country's Islamic law as a tool with which to limit women's rights." She was suspended from Parliament in 2007 and several fellow MPs are reported to have threatened to rape her for her strong beliefs. Remarkably, Malalai Joya is only 31 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malalai_Joya

#15 - Richard Branson - chairman, Virgin Group. Perhaps the best way to describe Richard Branson is that he is the real life Ayn Randian hero, except that he has a soul. Apart from the various Virgin Group business ventures he established and made his fortune on, he has funded global conflict resolution initiatives, hosted environmental conferences, participated in a hunger strike for Darfur, and built the world's first private spaceship. Those Dos Equis commercials? Based on him. (No, not really.) http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/

#16 - Baltasar Garzón - Spanish judge. Garzón has an interesting and novel interpretation of the principle of universal jurisdiction in international law, where one state may claim jurisdiction over citizens of another state if the crimes alleged are of too great an importance to be overlooked, and are severe enough to be considered a "crime against all." Garzón has applied this principle to investigate former Chilean dictator Pinochet, to prosecute former Argentine military officials complicit in crimes committed during that country's dictatorship, had Guantanmo terror suspects extradited to stand trial in Spain, and has more recently sought to investigate and indict former Bush administration officials on torture charges, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. On yeah, he's got Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Baltasar-Garzon/31037568757

#17 - Richard Dawkins - biological theorist. Richard Dawkins has attracted attention most recently as an outspoken proponent of atheism and the theory of evolution. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene proposed that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities," advancing a gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme to our modern lexicon. He is a thinker and scientist who attracts controversy and ignites debate with every step, and 2010 looks to be no exception. http://richarddawkins.net/

#18 - David Graeber - anthropologist. An outspoken anarchist and university professor, Graeber's soft-spoken demeanor belies his innovative and radical take on society and its structure. Considered by some of his peers to be "the best anthropological theorist of his generation from anywhere in the world," he was nonetheless dismissed by Yale (on allegedly political grounds) and currently holds the title of Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of London, as well as being invited previously to give the famed Malinowski Lecture at the London School of Economics. His Direct Action: an Ethnography examines the anti-globalization movement of the past decade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber

#19 - Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook. For the present, the site Facebook.com, founded by Zuckerberg in 2004, has become virtually synonymous with the term social networking. According to Alexa.com, it ranks second in total web traffic, behind only Google.com. The site continues to draw attention in both positive and negative ways, most recently with privacy policy changes that affected millions and drew the attention of even the ACLU. It looks likely to continue this trend into the new decade. http://www.facebook.com

#20 - The hacker. Hacking in the sense of technology continues to take on new and varied meanings in our increasingly connected and online present. From malicious cracking and virus or malware propagation, to peer-2-peer file sharing and copyright infringement, to device hacking such as jailbreaking or rooting and modding smartphones and other handheld devices, to hacktivism such as the anti-Scientologist group Anonymous, to advanced theories of netwar and cyberwarfare, hacking has yet retained much of its primary ethic: that information demands to be free and open to all. The Jargon File

#21 - The Chinese consumer. China has experienced unprecedented economic growth in recent years, largely unmatched by parallel political liberty, much to the consternation of many Western pundits who see the two as inextricably linked. While my own sympathy lies with Chinese pro-democracy and anti-corruption dissidents themselves, the reality is that the Chinese government has proven able to quite successfully repress and manage any discontent with its current political system. It remains to be seen how long such a system would last, however, if the country's new-found relative prosperity were ever significantly challenged in the years ahead.

#22 - The Iranian woman. The recent events in Iran captured much of the Western world's imagination with scenes of ordinary Iranians taking to the streets en masse in opposition to its own government, and, when brutally repressed, that opposition continued and appears to be strengthening. While the initiative for this open dissent came from opposition political parties and Iranian students, it is Iran's women as a social bloc in that Islamic nation who may tip the balance of power to one or the other side.

#23 - The American independent. Behind the shrill cries of party partisans, media personalities and political hacks on both sides of the debate in the United States rests the as yet staunchly silent American independent. They spoke at the polls in November 2008 to hand Obama and the Democrats a clear if close victory, but in recent months have abandoned them largely for reasons that have not been addressed. What motivated independents in 2008 was a belief that the country was headed in the wrong direction, and voted to mark a clear break with the past 8 years, electing not only the first African-American President, but also a majority for the Democrats in both the House and the Senate. Despite this there is now the clear perception that Democrats broke their word and pursued a policy of corporate bail-outs and an escalation of the war in Afghanistan among other issues, and all with the chutzpah of a party that is out of power, not in it. Faced with a Republican Party which seems content to obstruct all initiatives, fighting a culture war of their own invention, and a Democratic Party which seems content to disguise hand-outs and corruption as reform, independents are likely to abandon the polls all together in 2010. The one thing independents lack is organized clout with either side of the political establishment, yet electoral victory hinges completely on them, an odd and uniquely American conundrum.

In determining this list I had five basic rules, and other criteria:

* No politicians or government officials. If anything could have lowered my trust in government officials to come up with new and invigorating ideas, it was 2009. Whether that be for a bitter, losing party which responds to defeat at the polls by entertaining the racist conspiratorial fantasies of the trolls of its base, or to the winning party, which although it has the majority seems not to realize it, that steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it has a base at all and pursues political impotence as a cover for maintaining the corporate lobbyist status quo... and I come to this realization not with a bang, but a whimper. 2009 was a major let down of political expectations I had for both sides of the aisle. While Afghan MP Malalai Joya is a politician now, she was too much of an intriguing figure to pass up.

* No media whores. No one should be paying serious attention to Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, the balloon boy, or the cast of any reality show. They are media whores - their livelihood and/or self-esteem derive from their ability to generate attention; they are engines of regurgitation and fascination, rarely more. Into this same category goes Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Why? Because I agree with him: people should not be getting their news from a cable TV comedian. Something is wrong when we think he's a journalist - his own oft-repeated words.

* No one should be automatically added because they are CEOs. A lot of "most influential" lists read more like a wealthiest persons list. Someone makes a billion dollars selling an incredibly popular toilet seat cover - this does not make them worth listening to about anything other than the subject of their own toilet seat covers. In anything, if someone has billions of dollars and doesn't do anything else except make money or pose for photo ops, then they should be on an ignore list.

* Dead people. People can't come up with new ideas after they are dead. Sorry, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace and Julia Child.

* Other criteria for inclusion was a mix of notability (to stop people from going, "who?"), relevance to the present with a focus on innovation (having published or done something within the past 1-2 years), and a broad range of interest - these are the kind of people who should be able to hold their own in a serious conversation on any subject with anyone else on the list. Finally, these also happen to be people who I feel deserve more attention then they are receiving in many cases, whether you expressly agree with them or not. Noam Chomsky has enough groupies, Alan Greenspan enough yes men in tow; and neither has come up with any particularly new material in quite some time.

* One notable exception: the most glaring exception in my mind, considering the other tech choices I made, is anyone from Microsoft. Suffice it to say that both former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and current head Steve Ballmer continue to be influential people, however it is my considered opinion that Microsoft has done more to stifle innovation in its field than anyone else, primarily as a tactic to maintain its market share. Until that changes, they have not earned their press time.

History Channel faux documentaries: "The Lost Children of Nazi Germany"

2009-12-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

The History Channel's trademark is: History Made Every Day™. From TV shows like Monsterquest and Clash of the Gods to UFO Hunters, the History Channel has more than lived up to this self-fulfilling irony in recent years. In this vein, here's a little description of a faux documentary I would love to see created, titled "The Lost Children of Nazi Germany."

[Note: This is based on an actual dream I had of a full length History Channel documentary of the same name, right down to the closing credits. I have severely embellished it and threw in whatever relevant facts I found from Wikipedia - including fictional interviews with actual historians - to make it sound cooler. Try to imagine the History Channel narrator's voice when reading this.]

THE LOST CHILDREN OF NAZI GERMANY

[Opening: May 2004 - anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu] To scattered applause in a nearly empty conference room at the Ministry of Information and Communications of the government of Vietnam in Hanoi, a deputy information minister drops a bombshell on the assorted regional press: the Vietnamese government has unearthed rare footage within its archives of the bloody closing days of French colonial rule in Indochina from 1954. The grainy black and white film may change historians' understanding of the conflict in a new and controversial way.

Taken by a Viet Minh armed propaganda team, the silent film begins by showing a small village on the outskirts of the town of Dien Bien Phu, then garrisoned by French forces and under siege. Into the shot walks a youth of no more than 15. He is male, and appears to be Caucasian and blonde. Carrying a US issued M14 rifle, he wears instead what appear to be a surplus German-issue Wehrmacht combat fatigues and helmet. He is joined by others like him, ranging in age from 10 to 16 years old, armed with sub-machine guns and rifles, who are seen to begin shooting villagers at random, setting fire to houses, and other war crimes. The last visible frame in the footage shows a US or French soldier - a military advisor - commanding the raid, before the camera team stops filming and runs for safety under a barrage of gunfire.

The deputy minister then announces with official stoicism but more than a little pride that the footage is being handed over to an international team of experts to verify its authenticity. None other than noted Austrian historian Dr. Edgar Kemmer will head the team. The gathered press are stunned, but quickly burst with questions: when did they discover the footage? What do think think they will uncover? Who were those child soldiers and who was commanding them?

[Cut: Argentina, 1990] A group of Spanish independent journalists traveled to Argentina looking to research any clues about former Nazis who may have fled justice at Nuremburg to make new homes in South America in 1990. One man they interviewed had an extraordinary, if fantastic story: he claims to have been a member of the Hitler Youth sent to fight the Allied advance through Bavaria in 1945 at the age of 8 years old. The claim would have made him the youngest verified armed combatant of World War Two - beating out American Calvin Graham who was discharged from the US Navy after enlistment at age 12. Intrigued, the journalists conducted several interviews with the man and uncovered an outrageous tale spanning three continents and twenty years of war. The man's name was Albrecht Muller.

[Cut: stock footage of Hitler Youth, 1945] As the Third Reich fell under the combined pressure on both Western and Eastern fronts, its desperate leaders sought any recruit willing and able to carry a weapon, inducting thousands of German adolescents and elderly men to stem the Allied advance on the Fatherland. These untrained, poorly equipped and poorly lead troops often died hopeless deaths on the battlefield, or surrendered en masse as the war came to a close. Many of the youth were war orphans themselves, refugees in their own country during the new post-war order that established itself. Most of them were repatriated into society, but still others found themselves packed into refugee camps across Europe during the post-war years.

Albrecht Muller was one of these war orphans, he claimed, conscripted, given nothing more than a shovel and ordered to dig anti-tank trenches and use improvised explosives to halt the Allied advance. Instead, he was quickly captured by American forces moving through Bavaria with Patton's army. He became a mascot of sort for his captors. In interviews, he recalled American soldiers fondly, remembering the chocolate bars and other attention they spoiled him with.

He recalled one day, a high-ranking American colonel took him by the hand and told him that there was a special program for gifted children like him to help fight the Russians. He became one of the first members of this new, secret unit: a unit of child soldiers, armed and advised by American special forces, and trained in secret camps to fight the Cold War... he became one of the Lost Children of Nazi Germany.

[Cut: French Indochina, 1953] After the Second World War, Britain and France both felt the sting of lost empire as former colonies one by one began asserting their independence in peaceful [cue image of Gandhi by a loom] and not so peaceful ways [cue image of Viet Minh insurgents]. In French Indochina, a Vietnamese Communist leader by the name of Ho Chi Minh had already lead partisans against the Japanese forces during the war, and was well on his way to becoming the Vietnamese George Washington [note: very History Channel analogy] by overthrowing French colonial rule. The United States was soon drawn into this conflict in an advisory and support role, to stop Communism from spreading. A tense peace had settled in Korea, and the United States was unwilling - politically or militarily - to provide any direct support to aid French imperial pride as the war in Indochina turned against it. In secret, however, a covert operations group was set up by President Truman called the Military Assistance Advisory Group, or MAAG, to supply and train anti-Communist forces.

By this point, Albrecht Muller insisted, he was already a youth squad leader of 16 years old in this new Anti-Communist Youth battalion under the direct supervisory command of an American Green Beret he knew only as Captain George. He then made an even more astonishing claim. Due to French opposition to arming and equipping loyal Vietnamese troops, a company of child soldiers composed of former Axis war orphans was sent to Indochina during efforts to raise the siege of Dien Bien Phu in the spring of 1954.

[Cut: one of the Spanish interviewers of Albrecht Muller] "We thought he was full of it, of course, making up stories to gain attention. But something about him... he kept going, giving us such a level of detail."

Muller described how his company made its way through Thailand and Laos, armed with US weapons but dressed in surplus SS battle fatigues to encourage esprit de corps. They engaged in sabotage and often indiscriminate violence against civilians during short raids. Arriving on the outskirts of Dien Bien Phu just as Vietnamese General Giap made his last assault that forced a surrender of the French forces there, they were cut off, and made for the Laotian border along with two thousand French soldiers who had managed to escape encirclement. But then, one night, Captain George simply vanished.

[Spanish interviewer] "He seemed still, after these years, very pained about this. He said they looked up to him as a father figure. And then poof! He wasn't there."

Muller claimed his company of child soldiers was overrun by Viet Minh forces and all but a handful died in the confused fighting. He was taken prisoner. He was expendable.

In the years that followed, Muller came of age in captivity, separated by death or distance from his other surviving comrades. Eventually, he was handed over to a Russian military attaché who saw too it that he was supported during "rehabilitation" efforts. He attended school, but quickly tired of that, and managed to escape from that one day. He survived in the new Republic of Vietnam to the south first as a criminal henchman, and then as a pimp, until the next war began in earnest in 1965.

The Spanish film crew who interviewed him lost contact after this first series of interviews; they never attempted to verify his claims or return to Argentina. The footage they shot was also lost. He never explained what brought him to Argentina, either. Perhaps it was the sizable expatriate German population already there. In 1992 Albrecht Muller died at the age of 54, alone in a hospital waiting room, records indicate, of sudden cardiac arrest.

Could Albrecht Muller have been telling the truth? Was there a battalion of child soldiers, raised for war, and used as an expendable death squad in the jungles of Indochina in 1954?

[Cut: Rutgers University campus, present day] Rutgers University professor and Vietnam expert H. Bruce Franklin doesn't think so. Franklin was an active opponent of the US war in Vietnam.

"If there was, the anti-war groups would have known about it - it's just too shocking... the promise of cultural closure, of trying to come to terms with traumatic realities often drives people to create their own myths - often where they are the victims of fate and circumstance beyond their control - to bring order to a harsh world very much of our own making."

And what became of the footage so boldly announced in 2004 by a deputy minister of information for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam? Was the film authentic, a clever hoax? A case of mistaken identity? The team of international experts was quietly disbanded in 2006, never having reached a conclusion. The footage, if it still exists, is no where to be found. We contacted officials and former officials of both the current Vietnamese government and he United States military; all now disavow any knowledge of this film.

The mystery surrounding Albrecht Muller and the Lost Children of Nazi Germany may never be explained.

[Roll History Channel credits after much abridged documentary.]

[Note: once again, this is based on an a dream I had, which included the weird archival footage of kids in German uniforms fighting in French Indochina in 1954 and the basic plot, but not all the supporting fact details. Any real persons used like H. Bruce Franklin are there for scenery - I am sure he would tell this History Channel this never happened too.]

Westboro Baptist Church and the Power of Meh

2009-10-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

Meh.

When I found out the Westboro Baptist Church had secured a permit to protest Dickinson High School, my own response surprised me. The hate preaching lunatic choir is set to assemble outside of a high school in my neighborhood on October 28 to shout ridiculously venomous and hate-filled tirades at kids, but after the initial disgust subsided, I felt a deep sigh rising from my diaphragm with a single message.

Meh.

There are three main opinions of this Kansas-based group:

1) Ignore them. They have a Constitutional right to assemble but seek media attention as a platform to spread their insane rants; no one should take them seriously. They're about as isolated as any group can be, composed mostly of the kinfolk of Rev. Fred Phelps and out of step by about half a millennium with the rest of society. They've managed to alienate nearly everyone they encounter, from saying "God hates fags" to calling for the death of Jews, Muslims and Catholics, to praising 9/11 and picketing US soldiers' funerals. This is the conclusion that groups like the Hudson Diversity Action Council came to when considering whether to counter-protest or not. Effort spent giving them the attention they crave is misspent. No segment of society, not even other hardcore religious sects or racists, take their lead when it comes to how to be bigoted. Don't bother.

2) Run them out of town. This group of prairie bigots has no right to come to our state and spread their disgusting and divisive ideas here. After "cutting through the dinner party conversation about freedom of speech," as one British Member of Parliament put it when referring to another group of bigots - the British National Party, you have to recognize the real and serious consequences of treating such hate speech as equally valid to any other. Plenty of other protest groups have been denied permits for far less, so it's clear in practice that freedom of speech is not an absolute from the perspective of the courts. Add to the fact that they are targeting places of worship (synagogues), children (high school students), and other people with the sole purpose of harassing and intimidating them, it therefore becomes pretty clear that the only thing to do is to stand up and oppose them, sending a message that we will not go back to the days when persecuting and killing homosexuals, Jews, or any other group was deemed acceptable. We will not allow our communities to come under attack from anyone. Period.

3) The circus has come to town! This group represents classic trolling, going from town to town with their ridiculous message trying to offend people because they are either insane or have nothing better to do. Treating them seriously plays up their legitimacy and turns the joke on us. No one listens to them, but showing how ridiculous they are by mocking them is hilarious - and far more effective than yelling at them. They have never engaged in violence, and the best way to make people understand how out of touch they are is to turn the whole thing into a joke; they may not get it, but we do! Let them rally, have some fun with the sideshow and remember: "God hates the Flintstones because they had a gay old time!"

After giving it some thought, I can say I agree to some extent with all three viewpoints. No one disagrees that the Westboro Baptist Church are offensive and ignorant - except themselves. No one wants them here, but here they are. If we ignore them, they will still get media attention because they are such a bizarre phenomenon, and they will still be just as active as before. If we confront them, we play up their to their martyrdom complex and end up feeding the trolls. People are pissed off, people are offended, but in the end, nothing we do or say will ever change what the smallest inbred cult of bigots anywhere is going to do or say. And our ideas are stronger than their ideas; our society is stronger than the one they long for, because despite their outbursts, they are losing and we are winning.

It may not seem like that when some random mob of fools descends on your town to shout at you and your neighbors, and I agree with all those who want to take a stand against them, but society has changed so rapidly since their group was founded in 1955 that they have literally been left in the dust of inequality and irrational fear and hatred. No, it's not like all of that has vanished. I just think a friend of mine put it best when he said, "Quit feeding oats to a dead horse."

So meh.

I'll likely be there to watch them as they stand there cordoned off by police, shouting their fool heads off, secure in the right to protest that they would so hypocritically deny to others. I'll probably film and try to get a few funny pictures to post on the web. But the strongest thing I can think of to say to them is meh; I will go on living my life, trying to treat those around me with the same respect and equal dignity entitled to me. But what I won't do is feed the trolls.

If you feel like coming out to greet the circus, you can find them in Hoboken on October 27, 2009 at 4:45 PM outside of City Hall, then again at 7:00 PM outside of the United Synagogue of Hoboken on 115 Park Ave. Then on October 28, 2009 the fool parade will make its way to Jersey City to the intersection of Newark and Palisade at 2:55 PM after stops in New Brunswick and other towns that morning. All three stops in Hudson County are easy walking distance from the Hoboken and Journal Square PATH stations.

Westboro Baptist Church hates Jersey City high school students.

2009-10-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Westboro Baptist Church out of Overland, Kansas - infamous for its rampant hate rhetoric against gays, Jews, Catholics, US war dead and anyone else it can set its sights on - is now targeting Jersey City high school students. Because apparently, "God hates NJ" now, too. Especially, our children.

If the rest wasn't enough for you to say something, now's the time.

The self-proclaimed Baptist church, which routinely makes headlines with its virulently homophobic and anti-Semitic rallies, just announced it is going on a hate-tour of the Garden State, hitting up eight NJ towns and cities over the course of two days from October 27 to October 28, 2009. Stops include Hoboken, New Brunswick, and Jersey City.

After picketing a synagogue (for being Jewish) the night before in Hoboken, on October 28 they plan on rallying outside the main gates of Dickinson High School on the corner of Palisade and Newark from 2:55 to 3:30 pm - right as kids get out of school.

According to their website, it's all about our kids:

Dickinson High School - Full of NJ Elite? I think NOT! 2 Palisade Ave WBC knows about you filthy New Jersey BRATS! We know how to read on urbandictionary.com about New Joisee, and we know how to listen to your filthy voice mails and read your filthy emails. All things filthy, apparently from everyone's opinion, come from New Jersey. New Jersey was the first State to pass a law against WBC's picketing BEFORE we ever even visited that filthy state much less thought about picketing there. That should tell you that God Hates New Jersey! Back to the NJ Elite. Howabout if you over-indulged kids get a life already? You only have one duty in this life and it has nothing to do with your socializing and your fierce clothing and dieting habits! Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Now THAT is HARD CORE! Obama hates you little dumb kids, so I sure hope your getting prepared for no jobs, no money and no food! You got a plan? Praise God, Fear Him! AMEN!

Whether you feel they have a right to free speech or not, allowing this extremist anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, homophobic group to harass high school students endangers the safety of young people right as they are trying to get home for the day. We owe it to our community, and to the values we share as as city residents, to not let them get near a single student; the right to free speech doesn't give them the right to come to our town and target our young people.

I am calling on Mayor Healy and the rest of the Jersey City council to make sure that protecting the rights of a few hate preachers doesn't mean allowing them to subject our young people to bigotry. That is a big line to cross. Let them rally in a park, let school out for a half day... don't give them a fool permit in the first place, whatever it takes, just don't allow them to stand at the gates of that high school and force kids to run a gauntlet of hate.

I will be contacting city officials and telling them to do the right thing to keep the Westboro Baptist Church from subjecting our young people to bigoted harassment - and I hope you will join me.

Mayor Healy
(201) 547-5200
MayorHealy@jcnj.org

City Council
(201) 547-5204

Council President Peter Brennan
(201) 547-5319
BrennanP@jcnj.org

Councilwoman-at-Large Willie Flood
(201) 547-5134
FloodW@jcnj.org

Councilman-at-Large Mariano Vega
(201) 547-5268
mariano@jcnj.org

Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez
(201) 547-5159
NLopez@jcnj.org

We are keeping an eye on this and we will not stand for this kind of thing to fly in NJ or in JC.

UPDATE 5:20 PM: I just received a phone call from Councilwoman Nidia Lopez's aide Kerry Jicha.

Ms. Jicha was very supportive and shared many of my concerns. She assured me that the Westboro Baptist Church's protest, and whether or not anything can be done regarding a permit or the timing of the event at the high school, will be brought to the attention of Councilwoman Lopez and the city council - with the welfare of the students kept foremost in mind. I would like to take space here to thank her for her concern and prompt response.

UPDATE 7:30 PM: I have now begun receiving hate Tweets from the Westboro Baptist crew, specifically, Megan Phelps. A perfect example of why the City Council needs to seriously consider why any community should put up with letting vitriolic bigots like this anywhere near their kids' school.

A Tale of Two Jersey Cities

2009-07-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

Bribery, corruption, money laundering, and... organ harvesting. $97,000 in cash stuffed into an Apple Jacks box. Dozens arrested, including city council president Mariano Vega and soon, perhaps, Mayor Healy himself.

That's one side of this city. Corrupt politicians who disgracefully act in their own self interest, doing their best to sell out the other city.

The other city, represented today by slain Detective Marc DiNardo, who was killed after police moved in to arrest a gang of well-armed robbers, holed up and ready for a fight.

DiNardo represents those in public service who are willing to risk their lives to keep people safe. Moments like this do make me appreciate the risks and sacrifice taken by our often underpaid and under-honored firefighters, EMTs, police and other first responders. Marc DiNardo understood it. He understood duty and integrity.

The politicians in Healy's, Smith's and Manzo's crews (indicted and unindicted co-conspirators) do not, and never will. They will always be the ugly face of the city, the shadows by which we might better appreciate the light. Now I know why there is a heaven and a hell.

I hope the people of this city understand this too.

Journal Squared in the JC Independent

2009-07-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

Jon Whiten at the JC Independent was good enough to invite me to write a piece for them about the recent Jersey City elections, and how well the different campaigns did at using social media and the web in general.

See how the different campaigns stacked up: Jersey City Campaigns Embrace the Web … in Fits and Starts.

Check it out, along with other articles by Jon Whiten, Zac Clark, Jonathan Fitzgerald and more.

VIDEO: Iran Election Protests in NYC

2009-06-25T03:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a playlist of my footage from Iran election protests in NYC.

Check back for more videos, as events unfold.

The Farmers' Market is Back in Journal Square!

2009-06-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

With the official return of summer, the Farmers' Market has returned to Journal Square, and with it, loads of yummy fresh produce, breads and assorted goodies from local farms and bakeries!

The Farmers' Market will be at Journal Square every Wednesday this summer from 10 am to 7 pm.

Ten companies to stop buying from if you support democracy in Iran

2009-06-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

In the previous week, we've seen some amazing things from Iran: people taking to the street to demand democracy, using social networks and new Web 2.0 technologies to complement efforts on the ground and get their message out. User created videos on YouTube and Facebook have scooped mainstream media like CNN and minute by minute updates from Iran on Twitter have given us a rare view of the interconnected nature of life in this new world.

JournalSquared continues to give special attention to this issue by publishing the names of ten companies to stop buying from if you support Iranian democracy, as well as a list of companies currently doing business in Iran, to supplement a national strike being called by the Iranian opposition. Citizens of Western nations have felt frustrated by our inability to directly help on the ground while civilians are being shot and detained in Iran; here's one small way we can help out.

Boycott or contact these corporations. The Iranian government's actions against its own people cannot go unremarked. We are encouraging people to boycott these companies or to contact them and urge them to cease propping up the Iranian government with their business.

1. Don't buy a Nokia phone.

Nokia-Siemans provided the wiretapping technology being used by the Iranian government to hunt down and arrest dissidents, as well as spy on its own people. (IT and electronics firms like Cisco, Ericsson, Sony, Samsung and Toshiba have also done business with the Iranian government.)

Note: A Nokia spokesman described the system to the BBC as "a standard architecture that the world's governments use for lawful intercept" and noted that most Western governments require this feature. Nokia, however, does not supply this system to China or Burma.

A specific Nokia boycott page can be found here: Boycott Nokia for Iran Crackdown.

2. Stop drinking Coca-Cola, or 3. Pepsi products

Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, through subsidiaries, sell their products in Iran. While there is nothing wrong with Iranians drinking whatever they wish, the bonyads or religious charities which own the bottling plants in Iran are owned by the state and directly benefit the Ayatollah Khamenei, personally.

This tactic has also been used by activists critical of Coca-Cola's human rights record at bottling plants in Colombia and Guatemala.

4. Don't buy gas at Exxon-Mobil, 5. BP or 6. Shell

There are already calls under way to boycott Iran's oil in the wake of the repression by the Iranian government. But what do Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP have to do with it? According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has purchased refined gasoline from British Petroleum and worked with Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell subsidiaries to explore new reserves. The Iranian government maintains support among its people partly by subsidizing gasoline and oil.

7. Stop smoking these cigarettes: Barclay, Belair, Capri, Carlton, GPC, Kool, Laredo, Lucky Strike, Misty, North State, Pall Mall, Private Stock, Raleigh, Tareyton, Viceroy, Wings - or, most others.

Lucky Strikes? Pall Mall? Some pretty all-American brands in there, if my memory of World War 2 posters serves correctly. But besides being a health hazard, the company that manufactures these cigarettes - British American Tobacco - is a top exporter of cigarettes to Iran.

8. Put down that Nestle bar, and 9. drop that Cadbury creme egg!

Actually, in recent years there have been several attempts by certain Iranian groups to boycott Nestle as a "Zionist" company. Both Nestle and Cadbury Schweppes do business in Iran, though, part of a relaxation of trade restrictions on foodstuffs. Still, if you are concerned over your dollar going to support the Iranian government's crackdown, buy a different candy bar or ginger ale.

10. Switch your bank from Wells Fargo/Wachovia.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Wells Fargo Financial Services has invested in Iran through various mutual funds. Wells Fargo recently bought out Wachovia bank.

List of foreign companies doing business in Iran, or directly with the Iranian state, by country (source):

Global:
Bridgestone Corporation
Haier Group
Honda Motor Co.
James Hardie Industries NV
Millicom International Cellular S.A.
Saks, Inc.
Zarlink Semiconductor Inc.

Australia:
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ)

Austria:
OMV AG

Brazil:
Petrobras

Canada:
Aeterna Zentaris Inc.
Alta Genetics Inc.
Lundin Mining Corp
Precision Drilling Trust
Response Biomedical Corp

China:
Advanced Technology & Materials Co. Ltd
Chery
China Holdings, Inc
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)
China Stationery & Office Supply, Inc
CNOOC-China
Liaoning Industry & Trade Co. Ltd.
Mindray Medical International LTD

Finland:
Nokia Corp

France:
Alcatel-Lucent
BNP Paribas
Peugeot
Renault
Schneider Electric
Société Générale
Technip
Total SA
Valeo

Germany:
BASF
Bosch
Commerzbank
Deutsche Bank
Evonik, Formerly Degussa Iran
Linde
Lurgi
Mercedes
Siemens (Nokia-Siemens provided wiretapping technology to Iranian government)
ThyssenKrupp
Volkswagen

Greece:
Aries Maritime Transport Ltd

India:
ONGC-India
Reliance Industries
Tata Tea

Indonesia:
PT Indosat Tbk

Italy:
Ansaldo Energia SpA
Banca Intesa
Benetton Group S.p.A. (Benetton has announced that it has closed down Iranian operations)
Edison S.P.A
ENI
Fiat S.p.A.
Texco

Japan:
Bank of Tokyo - Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd
Canon
Inpex
Japan Tobacco
Kanematsu
Komatsu NYKLine
Millea Holdings Inc
Mitsubishi
Mitsui & Co Ltd
Samsung
Sony
Toshiba
Badr Electric Company (Toshiba's Distributor In Iran)

Malaysia:
Petronas
Proton Holdings Bhd

Netherlands:
ABN Amro
ING Groep NV
KPMG
Mittal Steel Co NV
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Schlumberger
Unilever
Vitol

Norway:
Norsk Hydro ASA
Statoil ASA

Russia:
Gazprom
Kamaz
Lukoil
Mechel OAO
MegaFon

South Africa:
SASOL Ltd
MTN

South Korea:
Daelim
Daewoo
SK Networks Ltd.

Spain:
Repsol YPF, S.A.

Sweden:
Ericsson
Volvo

Switzerland:
ABB Ltd
Credit Suisse
EGL
Nestle
Syngenta AG
Trafigura
UBS
Vitol

Turkey:
STFA
Tepe-Akfen-Vie
Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS

UAE:
Al Islami
Emirates Telecom
Mayrow General Trading
Redington Gulf
WWA Group Inc

UK:
Barclays PLC
BP
British American Tobacco
Cadbury Schweppes
Debenhams
Double Hull Tankers, Inc.
Hinduja Group
HSBC
Imperial Tobacco Group PLC
Lloyds TSB
Reuters
Tetley Tea
Unilever

USA:
Alcatel-Lucent
Atlas Copco
Baker Hughes
Calypte Biomedical Corp
Coca-Cola
ConocoPhillips
Chrysler
Exxon Mobil
General Electric
Halliburton
Hewlett-Packard
Iridex Corp
MasterCard
Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc.
PepsiCo
Secure Computing
Speaking Roses International Inc.
Tetley Tea
Tyson Foods
Vast Solutions
Visa
Wells Fargo (also owns Wachovia bank)

Note: This list is being updated as we speak, with links added. Please use this list as you see fit, to boycott products, call corporate offices, hold demonstrations at offices, etc. Benetton has already divested from Iran in light of recent events.

Not all of these companies do direct business with the Iranian government, but all (or their subsidiaries) are confirmed as doing business in Iran. Most notable are the oil companies, which deal directly with the Iranian government, IT firms, which aid in filtering Internet traffic and wiretapping, and arms or military and police equipment manufacturers. Wonder why the riot cops' armor says 'POLICE' in English across the back? They are manufactured here.

Support the general strike!

For starters on updates, visit:
Revolutionary Road
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/
...or follow Twitter's #iranelection feed.

Please post link suggestions as comments, as well as info on companies. I will be incorporating those comments into the blog. We are encouraging people to contact these companies as well about the Iranian government's egregious human rights record of repressing dissent and denying people their rights.

UPDATE: More news on Nokia-Siemens and how Iran suppresses dissent.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us

http://www.rsf.org/Repression-stepped-up-yet-again-as.html

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/20/iran-has-tech-to-track-tweets-texts/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/europe39s-telecoms-aid-with-spy-tech/print/

http://opennet.net/research/profiles/iran

Iran election rally at United Nations calls for action

2009-06-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Chanting, "United Nations, pay more attention," Iranian opposition supporters called for increased scrutiny by the international body outside of its headquarters in NYC today.

Several hundred demonstrators - supporters of the Iranian opposition candidate Mousavi - gathered in the rain at UN Plaza today to bring international attention to the violence being used against protesters by the government of Iran. The opposition movement is demanding a re-election, after widespread protests against election fraud by the government of Ahmadinejad.

Afterward, opposition supporters attended a panel discussion at Columbia University in NYC. Speakers on the panel included reformist leaders. Panel members spoke (in Farsi only...) of the situation in Iran currently and what needs to be done, citing the nonviolent civil disobedience traditions of Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau, among others. Despite continued attacks on protesters in Iran from the Basiji militia and now the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the panel speakers urged perseverance and nonviolence.

For more minute by minute coverage of events in Iran, including coverage of protests in NYC, check out my YouTube channel and Twitter feed.

Video from Iran: Young Woman Killed by Basiji [GRAPHIC]

2009-06-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

Her name was Neda.

Iran election solidarity rally in Union Square, NYC

2009-06-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

Iran's Netwar

2009-06-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Street demonstrations, a police crackdown, and violence. Security forces, trained in the traditional tactics of crowd control, find it hard to cope with a networked, anonymous and decentralized protest movement that can adapt to new situations and coordinate actions faster than they can. The protesters embrace new, high tech, networked tactics of mass protest, civil disobedience and resistance. Half way around the world, supporters of the demonstrators know of events before police do. Political leaders, unable to effectively manage political perceptions at home and around the world begin to lose control, and are faced with a stark choice: resort to unrestrained force and lose support, or capitulate to the protesters.

This is not Iran in 2009, but Seattle in 1999, according to Netwar in the Emerald City, a RAND Corporation report written by Paul de Armond in 2001. The WTO protest in Seattle was but one early example of the emerging theory of netwar, coming into its own this past weekend with the protests following the disputed Iranian elections.

In this most recent incarnation, free Western-based commercial services have been the mainstay of the Iranian opposition on the Net - Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, with various blogging services coming a close fourth. Mobile technology is omnipresent, with video and pictures in real time common. The government has responded with SSL/TLS filtering, tracking IP addresses and blocking access to proxy servers, as well as wiretapping cell phone communications using technology purchased from Western companies like Nokia. Within a few hours or less, the information technologies that are the mainstay of modern society had become its weapons.

The theory and practice of netwar often takes radically divergent forms, but the principles remain the same: the application of traditional and non-traditional methods of opposition, or low-intensity conflict, by activists, social movements or other non-state actors on a regional or global stage coordinated through decentralized, flexible networks and employing a high degree of information technology sophistication. The strength of any network is determined by its organization, doctrine, technology and social ties, and not necessarily its level of funding, weaponry or training.

To a large extent, netwar has become the natural result of advancing information technologies which allow us to create and interact with one another via larger social networks. The ability to mobilize information, resources and support is magnified almost in direct relation to this.

In 1994, the Zapatistas of southern Mexico rebelled following the passage of NAFTA. Faced with a first, quick military defeat at the hands of the Mexican Army, they withdrew to the hills of Chiapas and instead focused on reaching out to sympathetic activists throughout the world, relying primarily on the nascent Internet. Within weeks, global pressure by human rights and other progressive international activists forced the Mexican government to halt its offensive. Since 1994, a low-intensity conflict has emerged and stabilized, with neither side gaining the upper hand - but for the Zapatistas, survival itself was a victory, and support for them and their ideas spread rapidly.

In 1999, the World Trade Organization was holding its Millenial Summit in Seattle, Washington. For nearly a week, the summit was besieged by anti-globalization protesters, many of them inspired by the Zapatistas. The opening ceremonies of the summit were shut down, and the subsequent meetings made little headway. Decentralized groups of protesters engaged in civil disobedience lockdowns, while more participated in mass marches and others were involved in confrontations with police and property destruction. Rather than rely on the "corporate media" to carry their message, protesters created the Indymedia network of user created news sites. Cell phones were used to coordinate actions and report on police movements, as were Nextel walkie talkies.

During the years that followed, other advances grew out of these experiences. One example was TxTMob, an SMS text messaging service similar to Twitter, developed to coordinate protests at the 2004 Democratic and Republican political conventions. Police and government leaders around the world also adapted, establishing proven methods of response, preemption and perception management during protests to deal with any unrest. Research into new, high tech crowd control weapons and tactics was also undertaken. The advantage once held by the protesters was soon held by the security forces.

However, the last few years have seen the growth of technologies, including the necessary common access and knowledge to use them, that have shifted the advantage back to the protesters on the street. In particular, we see the use of otherwise commercial applications and services like Twitter or Facebook, as well as the tech savvy to just load a government website and reload it every 30 seconds with thousands of others until it crashes through a denial of service attack. Moldova's failed "Twitter revolution" of earlier this year or the war between Russia and Georgia last year gave us a glimpse of netwar, but only in Iran today are we seeing a full convergence.

Few people anticipated the sustained protests witnessed over the past few days in Iran. Some have likened it to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004-5, or the Tienanmen Square protests before that. Neither of those though comes close to describing what is happening now. Critics of the opposition, and critics of the United States, have characterized it as a rebellion funded and instigated by the United States against Ahmadinejad; this too, does not come close to explain what is occurring, neither in the rapidity, seeming inevitability or flexibility of the clashes, in the streets or on the web in the increasingly interconnected global consciousness.

Early polls in Iran indicated a variety of likely outcomes: a narrow victory by either the reformist candidate Mousavi or the incumbent Ahmadinejad would probably have gone unremarked, with the most predicted result being the possibility of a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and one of his rivals. Amhadinejad polled very well among the poor and working class Iranians, but when, two hours after polling ended, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner with 63% in an election where turnout was 85%, tempers flared among the Iranian middle class and the opposition took to the streets declaring the election rigged.

With them, almost out of nowhere, came the netwar.

Among the students of Tehran, Internet access and mobile phones are as commonplace as on any Western campus. When the results came in, many students reported results directly via Twitter and blogging sites. However, as allegations of fraud, and the resulting outcry, increased, access to static websites were often shut down. Twitter was the flexible alternative, accessible via the web or mobile phone, or using the Twitter API. It proved to be the best, fastest and least controllable medium by which to update and mobilize.

Within moments of an incident or protest, pictures were spread, videos shared on YouTube and in real time, updates sent. As quickly as the Iranian government tracked down bloggers and Tweeters and arrested them, proxy servers were set up. As the government filtered SSL/TLS protocols and access to sites like Facebook, other sites were being set up to facilitate Distributed Denial of Service attacks against pro-government sites. The effect was that none of this was happening in a vacuum.

Each government attack was publicized, fueling more protests, requiring a larger crackdown, and the cycle seems set to continue. Online, opposition activists have banded closer together, launching sites such as http://iran.whyweprotest.net/ with the help of groups like thepiratebay.org and Anonymous/4chan. The government, meanwhile, has stepped up threats to bloggers and has begun jamming BBC Persian TV signals and web proxies.

Ultimately, as Gwynne Dyer points out, the rules for street demonstrations are different in Iran. Government actions have hardly stopped people from continuing to protest. However, the repercussions beyond Iran, of perhaps the first full fledged netwar of the 21st century, are already profound.

Beyond this though, it is sometimes difficult to grasp the reality of events. People, ordinary people, have been killed and detained in Iran, the government in power resorting to force as governments so often do best. But perhaps, now that we are connected, the people of Iran and the rest of the world, when talk turns again to invasion and war in the future - regardless of the outcome of this current round of conflict - we might be able to stop it as we were not able to before.

Because the face of this netwar, I now realize as I check my Twitter account for updates, is not the B1 bomber, or the suicide bomber. It is a young girl in Tehran, my most recent follower, explaining how she must leave her dorm room because the Basij militia is attacking, and it is no longer safe for her to stay.

Ordinary people like us are not powerful, but neither are we powerless, either. Or alone.

UPDATE: Thanks for the insight, Slashdot! For a great overview and timeline of events in Iran, check out Fark.com's Iran discussions. In particular, Fark user Tatsuma created a running overview of events available here.

New layout, more news soon

2009-06-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

After a slight hiatus, more news and posts coming soon after an overhaul of the site layout.

Stay tuned for sneak peaks into Android Donut, Google Wave, refurbishing old machines and more!

The 'Cupcake' Conspiracy - Android 1.5 is (Finally) Here

2009-05-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

After countless delays, rumors and bad information, the much awaited Cupcake firmware update for US G1 users is here, via a manual install.

The install itself ran smoothly, downloading and renaming a .zip on my SD card and following some simple instructions. It went so smoothly, in fact, that it is hard to imagine why this has been delayed for so long, when by all appearances the update was ready to go some time ago and running well on the HTC Dream. In my opinion, T-Mobile wins high marks - for how to confuse and frustrate their users.

You can find the instructions for loading the Cupcake update, without having root access, here, courtesy of the AndroidGuys.

For those of you who do not know, rumors of an impending 1.5 firmware update for the Android mobile OS (the 'Cupcake' update) have been swirling since at least last October, reaching a peak in January, subsiding after that, and then again in early May that T-Mobile would be pushing out Cupcake on May 12. Which proved to be wrong. Again. Now, T-Mobile has promised all US owners Cupcake by (or, starting) June 1 with an Over-the-Air update.

Not surprisingly, I didn't believe them anymore, and took my chances doing a manual upgrade.

The questions I had were these:

First of all, why was T-Mobile allowed control over updates to the operating system's firmware to begin with?

Apple does not let AT&T obstruct updates to the iPhone OS; updates are pushed out directly from Apple. This level of delay and obstruction to an OS from a carrier is just retarded.

Second, why was this so hard to push out?

If OTA was the problem, why was it being pushed out via an OTA instead of over the Google Market, or at least via a web upload? This is ridiculously simple, and operating systems developers - from Microsoft to Apple to Canonical/Ubuntu - routinely roll out updates on this scale. T-Mobile, you are a major carrier. There is no excuse for this.

Third, even if the above two are explained, there is also no excuse for not giving customers reliable information about the OTA updates and the availability time frame.

G1 users are not idiots. Really, we're not.

My own theory, for lack of better information (T-Mobile has been a black hole of accurate info) is that T-Mobile is either being deliberately obstructionist because they believe it allows them to assert greater control over their customer base, and over the Android project as a whole, or they are simply incompetent, having never rolled out something this big before.

My first conspiracy theory begins with the assumption that T-Mobile is more than a little intimidated by Google's role in the marketplace. T-Mobile does not want to be relegated to the status that AT&T is with regard to the iPhone, and as such needs to assert arbitrary controls over how updates are handled and rolled out.

Google, while developing the OS, also has never exhibited the kind of tight control and micromanagement that companies like Apple have had; this is definitely a choice. It allows Google to maintain a presence without having to own the process from start to finish, and coincides with their generally open philosophy regarding open source software.

As such, T-Mobile launched a piecemeal rollout months late in order to assess market demand and control any unforeseen problems.

My second conspiracy theory is that T-Mobile, new to operating systems like Android and open source projects, is naturally hesitant with anything "untested" within their proprietary mindset. They rolled it out as they would any other project - with maddening slowness. Instead of concentrating solely on telecommunications, they were given an OS update which they then sat on because of market concerns or inexperience in this arena. A decision was made somewhere to do this.

Either way, the result is a mediocre showing that has really pissed off a lot of users, fed by Internet rumors and anticipation as some people got the update while others had to wait.

I would love to hear from T-Mobile on this, to dispel any of these theories. I welcome it.

All that being said, the Cupcake update is really great, with several new features that really improve the phone. But more on that later.

T-Mobile: Low marks for transparency, openness and user communication skills. It's a wonder I waited this long to begin with, and the thought of going through another update wait-and-see when the Donut update comes out makes me whinge; I will be searching for a leaked update as soon as it becomes available. Please, allow us to do this manually via Wifi and ditch the whole OTA model.

Google: High marks for a firmware update well done. New features have been incorporated well, especially the new camcorder app. I am having a lot of fun exploring and relearning my phone again.

In His Own Words: Ward B Candidate Paul Catsandonis

2009-05-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

For the run up to the election on May 12, I recently had the opportunity to ask Ward B Council candidate Paul Catsandonis a few questions about Jersey City, the campaign, and why he chose to run. Here's the interview, the first of (hopefully) a series covering different candidates in Jersey City's upcoming election.

JournalSquared: I've written about this on my blog before, but until recently I was pretty clueless about Jersey City politics... I did not even know I lived in Ward C. I moved to Jersey City two years ago, but my mother was born and raised in Greenville and my grandfather went to Dickinson High School in the 1910's.

You're running for council on the Smith ticket for Ward B. For someone trying to rediscover Jersey City, tell me a little bit about Ward B. To blatantly plagiarize Stephen Colbert, greatest ward ever?

Paul Catsandonis: In the 1980's and early 1990's Ward B was the best ward in my opinion. However, with the development of downtown, all eyes became focused on coddling developers and city government lost sight with the backbone of this city, that is Ward B.

JournalSquared: If the last Presidential election taught us anything, it's that campaigning in the socially networked age of Facebook and Twitter is a very different thing than it was just five years ago.

What do you feel is the best way though for council members and candidates to connect with their constituents? What's worked best for you, and for the Smith campaign?

Paul Catsandonis: I believe the best way to connect with the constituents is by going door to door because Ward B is very diverse in demographics and geography. The concerns of Marion are at times different from the concerns of West Bergen. However, we can all agree that the rise in crime and taxes are on all of our minds.

JournalSquared: Another thing I noticed, there are many more candidates running for office than I had expected. Doug Salters, Arthur Williams, Michael Manzo and Phil Kenny are all running for the Ward B seat as well. As a candidate, some controversy surrounded Phil Kenny when he was appointed to Mary Spinello's council seat; I was at that meeting. I believe you were quoted as saying that it was “mockery” that “only shows how insecure the Healy slate is.”

What sort of questions are raised in your mind on this, and how do you approach a candidate who can now claim the status of the incumbent? How did that change the game?

Paul Catsandonis: I am opposed to Mr. Kenny being the interim councilman because it gives him in unfair advantage in the race. By using City Stationary to raise his profile and getting access to buildings that a non-city official would not are just a few of the unfair advantages. A non-candidate would have been the best to be interim councilman.

JournalSquared: You also ran for the same seat on the City Council in 2005. Tell us what's changed in that time. What influenced your decision to run now?

Paul Catsandonis: It is and has been for the last four years my goal to get Ward B back on the radar. That is why I ran four years ago.

JournalSquared: Harvey Smith served as Acting Mayor in 2004. What influenced your decision to run with his slate this time? What sort of lessons came from that, as a campaign?

Paul Catsandonis: At that time, Harvey Smith was Councilman and I was impressed with his passion for politics. He seemed the only councilman willing to address everyone's concerns no matter how big or small. While I approached other members of the Council, they seemed too standoffish.

JournalSquared: A recent NJ.com Political Insider report showed that Mayor Healy had already raised and spent about $2.7 million on this campaign, with about $300,000 left in its warchest. Those are pretty big odds.

How do other campaigns tackle this, and does it raise a bigger question about campaign funding in general? Should supporters of other candidates dig in and get more active to counter-balance this?

Paul Catsandonis: I believe residents of Ward B should be more active and that has been my goal through the Westside Neighborhood Association: to integrate the different communities of Ward B and raise awareness of their concerns. While Team Healy's warchest is certainly daunting, I will never give up fighting for Ward B!

JournalSquared: Thanks again for your time, and good luck in the coming election on May 12!

If you are interested in more information on Ward B candidate Paul Catsandonis, you can visit his website, http://www.paulcatsandonis.com, or visit the Smith Campaign's website, http://harveysmith.org.

Enabling WiFi on the Asus Eee PC - Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix

2009-05-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

Netbooks are really hot right now, and the Asus Eee PC 1000 H is a sexy little machine. A friend of mine got one a while back, but really couldn't stand Windows XP on there any longer, so we went ahead and installed the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix on it, wiping away all traces of Windows.

There are quite a few great how-to's out there on going ahead with the UNR install, so I won't repeat them here. The best by far that I've found are the Ubuntu Wiki How To here, and JPierre's how to here. However, there were two major pitfalls I encountered that are worth pointing out.

1) I/O Errors Galore!

When you create the bootable USB drive, be sure you have a good one.

The first two times we tried it with older USB drives, we consistently hit I/O errors upon installing the system although the live distro worked fine. ImageWriter was a great and easy to use application though, and once we went out and chucked some money down on a new USB drive, it went off without a hitch.

Advice: Create a bootable image on a brand new USB flash device.

2) WiFi and wireless devices not working

For the Asus Eee PC 1000 H, WiFi worked out of the box, but after my friend took her netbook home, the WiFi card was no longer detected and she was unable to connect or even see WiFi networks through Network Manager. Frustrated, she brought it back and the digging began.

The first step in troubleshooting this was to get the information about the wireless itself.

In Terminal, to check the wireless connection, I typed:

iwconfig

I got nothing. Seriously bad.

Next, to see the WLAN interface, I typed:

cat /proc/net/wireless

I again got nothing. The WLAN interface was not coming up.

Next, I entered:

sudo lshw -C network

This would show me the different network hardware the netbook recognized.

Again, nothing. Ubuntu was no longer recognizing the Atheros WiFi device.

Next, I wanted to see exactly what chipset the netbook had for its WiFi controller, so in terminal I entered:

lspci

Down at the bottom of the list, this displayed:

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

This told me the netbook had the AR242x chipset.

Searching around the web, I found this awesome walk through on how to fix the whole mess at Hyperandy's Blog.

It requires some command line fu, but everything is laid out neatly right there. Basically, while we had enabled the Atheros "madwifi" restricted driver, we had not added the necessary module to the kernel or added ath_pci to /etc/modules.

Advice: Get to know the command line basics. It will save you a lot of time getting the right information about your problem.

Also, dig around and be picky with what advice you follow; not all of it will work, and some of it will cause more headaches than are worth it.

If you're getting a bleeding edge computer, try to get it with Linux pre-installed if you can.

Here is her desktop now, using Awn Manager, which creates a neat OS X-like dock panel interface:

Hyperandy's Blog definitely saved the day, but unfortunately, my friend never would have been able to do this without my help. My friend is quite happy now, and that is what counts.

I will swear by Linux and Ubuntu in particular for its great ease of use (once it is setup) and for its stability, security, and performance over Windows until the day I die, but until manufacturers see a demand out there to either work with Linux developers more or release their drivers, bleeding edge will take a great deal of sleuthing and work to configure properly.

Election '09 - Ward E Council Candidates Battle for New Blood

2009-04-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

If you live in Ward E of Jersey City - the Grove Street area and its environs - last night presented a great opportunity to get up close and personal at meet and greets for two of the city council candidates: the incumbent Councilman Steven Fulop and one of his challengers, Council Candidate Guy Catrillo.

While bios and platforms provided by the different tickets are a great start for reading up on where the candidates stand on issues, nothing compares to meeting the candidates in person and getting a feel for them, in their own words. This was definitely the case with both of my experiences last night meeting Guy Catrillo and Steven Fulop, two very distinct candidates for office. Rather than give a straight run down on their positions, I will instead try to give the low down on the candidates themselves, from a personal perspective.

Councilman Steven Fulop met residents at Subio's Organic Market on Jersey Avenue, a small, hip and healthy alternative to the run of the mill fast food joints, chain restaurants or Whole Foods-style markets out there now. This seemed a signature choice for Fulop, who at the age of 27 in 2005 became the youngest elected official in city government. In the years since, he has built a solid, independent reputation for himself - and after meeting him, it's no surprise how.

Steven Fulop is a man on a mission. Young at only 32 years old, he is studious, crisp and energetic in his tone, his movements and his body language. Everything about him resonates a single message: Ward E of Jersey City is at the crossroads of a major transformation, and he is the Councilman with the vision to make the future happen.

Part of that energy can be seen in Fulop's online campaign as well: he boasts a Facebook page and he Twitters - a new fact of politics in the 21st century.

But as local residents gathered with standing room only in the small market, Fulop took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and embarked on an in-depth and frank discussion about what he sees for this area of the city. His ultimate vision: turning the area on Newark Ave. and Christopher Columbus near the Grove Street PATH into a first class - and pedestrian friendly - nightlife and restaurant hotspot. He talked about the renovation of park space like Hamilton Park, the eventual construction of a walkway to Hoboken to better link the two cities, and then moved to address questions and concerns from those gathered.

Newark Avenue between Jersey and Grove will be the anchor of that redevelopment in Fulop's vision; there are even plans for that stretch of Newark to be closed off to vehicular traffic if feasible. He stated that although there were no current plans to use eminent domain to buy out business in that area - or "$.99 store after $.99 store," as he put it - he made clear that the option would remain on the table as a last resort for any hold outs. And in this, his audience nodded in agreement.

The battle for Ward E is clearly being fought for a different electorate than other wards - the message reached out to the new Jersey City more than the old, the young families, upwardly mobile professionals and homeowners who drive the downtown economy. Clearly, future plans call for attracting more vistors, and cash, by promoting entertainment and shopping with focused development. If you get the sense that candidates in other wards aks for the votes of long-term residents with roots, in Ward E, if you're a new arrival then candidates want to shake your hand, too.

Winning the support of these "new blood" Jersey City residents was a top priority at Council candidate Guy Catrillo's get together at the classy LITM restaurant and lounge on Newark Avenue as well.

If Fulop is serious, crisp and hard policy oriented in his demeanor, then the affable Catrillo is like a Tom Jones backstage pass; I have to hand it to him, he is seriously charismatic. He ran as a Republican in 2001 for a state Senate seat, but you can leave any preconceptions you might have had of Republicans at the door. This is Jersey City after all.

I got a Twitter message from a friend of mine and made my over there; it was the first time I had ever been to LITM, and the mood was lively, the drinks expensive, running $8.00 for the best whiskey sour I ever had. But if you were there to meet Catrillo, beer was on the house - a tried and true campaign angle since the days of Andrew Jackson.

My own preconceptions fell flat when I finally got a chance to meet Catrillo. Within the first few moments, he was able to zero in on what made people tick, mentioning he is a guitarist (I have been a drummer for about 20 years now) and introducing me to the mother of one of the members of the band "Streetlight Manifesto." Hard policy talk was not on the table though - this was a get to know the man event, and there were plenty of people interested in meeting him.

On the issues, Catrillo is running on Healy's slate and his platform is in line with that. A life-long resident of Jersey City, Catrillo has pledged to bring together various parts of the community, especially, as he puts it, "the divide between the old and new citizens." He supports redevelopment matched with affordable housing, preservation of historic sites and making downtown "greener and cleaner."

Catrillo also boasts a Facebook and a MySpace page to connect with voters.

But by comparison, what sets Fulop apart on the issues are the details, and he articulates them clearly. However, the issue of government use of eminent domain for private development is a touchy one for small businesses and residents under the gun, and one that Fulop needs to be mindful of, considering the scope of his vision for redevelopment. Any use of eminent domain will likely be fought by the residents and businesses impacted, and considering court rulings over the years, the city would likely win, but at an untold political cost. It's certainly a discussion that needs to be on the table. Unfortunately too, redevelopment is an issue that sets the old Jersey City apart from the new like no other.

[UPDATE, May 3: I ran into Steven Fulop at Larry & Joe's Pizzeria on Newark Ave this afternoon, and he again emphasized that the redevelopment plan itself does NOT call for the use of eminent domain. He also reassured me that he does not wish for eminent domain to be used, although it had been in the past as a last resort. Good to know we live in a city where you can bump into a councilman at a pizzeria and he'll give you the time of day, too. -Tom.]

Fighting against the incumbent in these closing weeks, Catrillo's ability to get new voters and recently won over supporters out to the polls - alongside Healy's base - will be tested. Fulop has a strong reputation among likely voters as a hard-working and honest politician as well, something that can't be discounted, and any strategy that relies on new blood at the polls is a risky one when election day arrives and you need numbers at the voting booth.

But then, taking risks is what the game is all about.

Do Androids Dream of Jaunty Jackalopes?

2009-04-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

Still weeks away from the 1.5 firmware update to Google's Android mobile platform for the G1, and with much anticipation, I decided to go balls to the wall and nuke and pave my workhorse desktop - a budget Compaq Presario AMD 64 - to do a clean install of Ubuntu's latest release, 9.04 'Jaunty Jackalope.'

I wanted to see exactly how well Ubuntu 9.04 could go to replace the last vestiges of Vista Home Premium installed in a dual-boot here. If there was any time for a Linux Windows-killer distro, this is it. Microsoft's operating system reputation lies in shambles with the Vista debacle and with Windows Seven still far off, millions of users are left clinging to the driftwood of an 8-year old operating system named XP... in human years, it's like betting on an 80-year old pro-wrestler in a UFC match.

The biggest fear I've heard from users about Linux is how little is configured right out of the box; this might be true, but the lack of pre-packaged options is more than made up for by the depth of user experience it gives. If you follow some basic how-to guides, you'll be off and running with a Windows replacement desktop in no time.

Step 1: Download the desktop release of Ubuntu 9.04 from Ubuntu's website and burn it to CD.

Go to http://www.ubuntu.com and download it.

Be sure to burn the ISO as a bootable image - don't just copy and paste it as a data CD. This is easy with simple burning software, free or paid for. I used Toshiba Disc Creator for this, which has an option for burning from image to disc; it may be necessary to burn at the lowest possible speed to minimize the risk of write errors. If your burning software has that option, I recommend it - it's worth the time spent.

Ubuntu offers three main options: a desktop version (32bit or 64bit), a server version (32bit or 64bit) and a netbook remix. I went with the 32 bit i386 install, although I have an AMD 64. 64bit chips will run a 32bit operating system with no problems.

Special note on using Wubi: If you are a Windows user, and you are not doing a clean install (i.e. not overwriting everything), a great way to try Ubuntu right from your Windows desktop is Wubi. Just as Linus from Peanuts had his security blanket, we have our Wubi as well.

To use Wubi, start Windows normally and put the Ubuntu CD in your drive. Open up the CD, and you should find wubi.exe. Run Wubi. You will be prompted for a password and other info, then click Install. When that is done, reboot. Your start up screen will now give you the option of booting to Ubuntu as well as Windows. You can do this if you don't want to replace Windows, or don't feel comfortable yet doing a dual-boot.

Step 2: Put the CD in the drive, and restart your computer, making sure to set your computer to boot from CD before you begin.

Most computers have this by default, but you may have to go into your BIOS and set it to boot from CD/DVD drive first, before hitting the main hard drive. This will load the Live CD portion of Ubuntu. You will see options to test drive the OS before committing, install straight away, check the disc for errors, or check the memory on your system.

I chose to test drive Ubuntu first booting from the Live CD, then after I was satisfied, I clicked on the Install icon on my desktop.

Step 3: Decide how you want to install Ubuntu.

You can either install as a second partition to run alongside any other operating systems (like Windows) you have installed, to use the entire hard disk, or to manually choose a partition.

If you want to dual-boot with Windows, choose the first option. The manual option allows you to set your /home directory as a separate partition, but don't worry about that now. You can move your /home directory to a manual partition later if you are feeling adventurous. The only benefit is that later, when you upgrade to a new release, your data and personal files on /home will be safe and sound.

I chose to use the entire disk.

Starter's note on partitions: Here's one big way that Linux differs from Windows. The disk is separated into different partitions which each interact in different ways. The primary partition is where the core of your operating system lives in the root or / directory, and by default, the entire rest of the filesystem. After that, you may also notice extended partitions, which contain one or more logical partitions. One of these is by default formatted as a swap partition.

The swap partition acts as virtual storage space on the hard drive much as RAM does; it is used in addition to standard memory to help speed up system processes. The recommended size for this on most desktop computers is twice the amount of available RAM, up to 2 Gbs, although this varies and desktops can deal with larger, or multiple, swap partitions. For now, one primary partition containing your filesystem and one extended partition, with a logical partition for swap, is fine.

Later, you may want to resize your partitions to maximize your swap space - that is best done through the Live CD using its partition editor, with all the partitions unmounted. Back up your data first!

Step 4: Once you have decided how you want it set up, click install!

This will run through the process of formatting the partitions to the proper filesystem (ext3, ext4, swap or other types... ntfs is a Windows standard while fat32 is a DOS format which can be read by both Windows and Linux, but should not be used for anything other than storage). Ext3 is the standard Linux filesystem format right now, so go with that. You will also be able to set a username, password, and a name by which the computer is recognized on networks. It will then proceed to set up the system. Once it is done, it will restart the computer.

Step 5: Activate any restricted drivers.

Your first view of the desktop may look great, or it might look like crap on a stick. Mine did.

I am running a Compaq Presario with an AMD 64 chip on an Nvidia motherboard, and the built in graphics card for Nvidia's motherboard uses a restricted driver. Fear not!

In the upper right hand corner of the top panel you may see an icon that looks like a computer board, or a pop out window may appear asking you to install and activate restricted drivers. By restricted, it does not mean that you will be violating any license to run these, it just means that they are not open source. Click to activate the ones you see; for me this meant activating my Nvidia driver. A restart will be required for these to take effect, one of the few restarts you will encounter.

A window will also pop up asking you to update your system. This is the helpful Update Manager. I recommended updating as often as possible. Don't worry, this is not Windows and updates are neither pushed out without your consent nor will they break your computer. Linux updates are a valuable way for your software to continue to benefit from the work of a community of developers, working together and creating the best software possible.

Step 6: Enable repositories.

Another thing about Linux is that most of the available software is open source, which means that all the software you could possibly want is likely to be free: free as in beer and free as in freedom. You access this software by enabling repositories and then downloading it. We can do this two ways: through Software Sources, or by editing our sources.list.

To do it the easy way, go to System --> Administration --> Software Sources. Enter your password and continue.

Go to the Third Party Software tab and mark the check box next to http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner to enable it.

You can also enable http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner (Source Code) if you want to compile software from its source code, but this is not necessary.

To do it the hard way and edit your source.list directly, crack your knuckles and get ready: this part requires using the Terminal to launch gedit.

For anyone who remembers DOS, the Terminal or command line interface looks pretty familiar.

Go to Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal. You will see a command prompt that takes the form of username@computername:directorypath$, or in my case, tom@Ptolemy:~$

The tilde is the symbol used for your home directory, or /home/tom in my case. The dollar sign is the prompt itself; anything after this is a command you type in.

First, backup the file. You can do this by going into the /etc/apt folder and right-clicking on the sources.list file and hitting Copy, then Paste it into the same folder under a different name, like sources.bak, or you can do it with the command line.

On the command line, you would type this:

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.bak

To revert to the saved file later, just reverse it:

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.bak /etc/apt/sources.list

cp is the command for copy, and it follows this format:

cp [target file] [output file]

The sudo part of the command gives you super-user access to make changes. You will be prompted for your password here.

Next, to edit the sources.list using the command line, type this:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

The sources.list file tells your computer what repositories are enabled, and therefore, what software is available for you. This will open a text editor, gedit, that will let you change the file contents.

Find the part in the file that says:

# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner

Delete the # and white space before this line. Hit save, and close the text editor. Again, you can delete the # and space before the entry deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner just below that, but that is not necessary unless you plan on compiling software from source and never seeing the outside world again.

Next, we want some good multimedia software, so we will have to get another repository added. Again, we can do this through Software Sources or through the command line.

Open up Software Sources. Go to the Third Party Software tab. Click Add...

In the empty field that reads "APT line:" enter or copy and paste this:

deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free

Hit Close and then you will be prompted to Reload. Go ahead. You should get an error that begins with, "W: GPG error:" ...

Go to Synaptic, as detailed a few steps below, by going to System --> Administration --> Synaptic Package Manager. Click on the Search button (not the Quick search field) and look for medibuntu. A list of options will come up. Find medibuntu-keyring, click on the checkbox to mark for installation, then hit Apply.

To do this through the command line instead, go to Terminal, and type this to import the medibuntu repository:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Then import the gpg-key and update:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

Step 7: Install kick-ass software.

Back in the day, Linux users feared dependency hell, where software could be installed without having the other parts it relied on, and thus was easy to break just because you forgot to install a single library. This can still happen, but rarely, thanks to tools like Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager, a frontend for apt, which calculates dependencies and installs them automatically.

I have learned to love Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager, and 9.04 is better than before. To really have a Windows-replacement desktop, you'll want to have at least all of these installed, with only a few that are only available through third-party sites.

Start Synaptic by going to System --> Administration --> Synaptic Package Manager and entering your password.

Then search for each of these and mark them for installation. You can later click Apply to install them all at once. (This is a Jaunty-updated list of apps from Falko Timme's 'The Perfect Desktop: Ubuntu 8.10' which is definitely a more in depth look at configuring Ubuntu.)

* amarok
* adobe-flashplugin
* amule
* audacity
* vuze
* banshee
* bluefish
* dvdrip
* filezilla
* msttcorefonts
* gnucash
* gstreamer
* gtkpod-aac
* sun-java6 * (all except sun-java6-doc and sun-java6-demo)
* k3b
* kino
* mplayer
* mozilla-mplayer
* quanta
* kompozer
* scribus
* vlc
* xchat-gnome
* xmms2
* bittornado
* bittornado-gui
* sound-juicer
* helix-player
* mozilla-helix-player
* googleearth
* acroread
* non-free-codecs
* ubuntu-restricted-extras
* libdvdcss2
* xine-ui
* xine-plugin
* thunderbird
* skype

Then click Apply, and wait for a few hours depending on your connection. Get some lunch, stretch your legs or take a nap.

Step 8: Get software not available through Synaptic.

* opera

Go to http://www.opera.com and download the Opera web browser for Linux, Ubuntu 8.10 or 8.04. Open the file rather than saving, and install.

* tweetdeck

If you are a Twitter or Facebook fiend, you hate to go a day or less without updating your status or sending out a message to your tweeps. One of the most popular desktop applications for this is Tweetdeck, and yes, it runs on Linux.

First, go to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/ and scroll down to Adobe Air for Linux. Follow the download options and save it to your Desktop.

Next, move or save AdobeAIRInstaller.bin to your home directory (i.e. /home/tom). Then open terminal.

Type this:

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Then type this:

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Agree to the terms and install it.

Next, get Tweetdeck here:

http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/TweetDeck_0_20.air
Open with AdobeAirInstaller and go!

By default, this application is considered 'untrusted,' and displays an ugly icon of a text program on your Desktop if you choose to put one there. To get rid of this, just double-click to launch the icon from your desktop and mark as trusted... voila! A neat Tweetdeck icon appears.

* picasa

Get Picasa, Google's photo tool, here:

http://picasa.google.com/linux/thanks-deb.html
After downloading, double click to install it.

Step 9: Have more fun with Compiz!

If your graphics card supports it, you can go nuts with your Desktop display settings, including customized windows, effects and 3D interface.

Compiz should already be included by default, but go to Synaptic and install:

* compizconfig-settings-manager

This will now appear in your System --> Preferences drop down menu. Play around with it. You'll never miss XP, trust me...

Step 10: Back up your system, in case you have too much fun with it.

A great, simple tool for this is called sbackup. You can get this through Synaptic.

For me, Jaunty Jackalope hits just the right mix between bleeding edge and dumpster tech to be more than welcome here. It's stable so far, runs better on my $350 Newegg special than Vista ever did, and outpaces previous releases as well (I hated Gutsy Gibbon).

While not as stable as a longer term release like Debian, it's great if you configure it properly and don't cram too many bizarre repositories into it. Plus, usability is key, and this is as easy as any do-it-yourself home improvement project is. A great OS for work-day Linux users such as myself, or new refugees from other operating systems.

The one major drawback is that I dread attempting to run games like Fallout 3 on Ubuntu, but with enough tweaking, others have done it with the Windows pseudo-emulator WINE. Still, Linux is a long way from competing with Windows when it comes to games, so if that's your thing, be warned.

All in all, I give Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope an 8 out of 10 penguins. There is still no great emulator for Windows games, it is difficult to find support for some manufacturers' drivers (but these are more rare) and setup still requires some effort. But, 8 penguins beat the hell out of 3 memory dump bluescreens of death out of 10 any day.

How to get ripped off in Journal Square

2009-04-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Journal Square has small businesses everywhere; corner bodegas, delis, pizzerias, convenience stores and fast food restaurants (franchise and non-chain alike) dominate the real estate. So if you're looking for a quick bite to eat, a pack of smokes, or you just remembered to buy some food for your pet on the way home, there are many places do it. The trouble is, with food prices skyrocketing and wallets tightening, you have to be careful where you go, because you can get ripped off quicker than you can enter your ATM PIN.

Some things to watch out for if your bank balance always feel a bit lighter after you visit a certain store:

* They rush you out the door before you have a chance to count your change.
* Items have no price tags on them.
* Shelves have no prices plainly visible.
* Stores that have credit or debit card minimums posted.
* Stores that only accept cash.

While not all of these mean they are cheating you, they definitely raise a flag for me.

Today I decided to grab breakfast at the Sunflower Deli on Journal Square.

This place is always packed in the morning. Their breakfast sandwiches are great, and cheap too at between $2.75 to $3.75. Their coffee is also great, and brewed frequently. I have never had an issue with service, until today.

One of my co-workers came back with a delicious smelling egg white omelette this morning, and a complaint: the sign over the grill says that the combo comes with an omelette, home fries and a small coffee, but they charged him for the coffee regardless.

He brought it up, and the cashier said, "Oh, that's tax."

A $1.25 tax on a $3.25 purchase? Rather than argue, my co-worker left and vowed never to go there again. I decided to check it out on my own.

Most days, I beat the crowd, but this time it was packed with at least 20 people waiting in line or for food. I ordered a pastrami, egg and cheese on a croissant for $3.25, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes from the salad bar weighing in at $2.16, an orange juice at $1.50, and a large coffee for $1.50 = $8.41. The cashier (who may be one of the owners) rang me up and... $9.96.

Unless Corzine went crazy overnight and managed to raise sales tax to 18.5%, I was being ripped off. I stopped and asked and again, got the answer, "Oh, that's tax."

I decided, like my friend, not to argue. There were 15 or so other people behind me, and the sandwiches are delicious anyway, so I let it slide, making a note to watch and say something if it happens again. Besides, it was incredibly busy in there, and it may have been an honest mistake. Either way, it was not worth the fight.

Next, I needed stamps to send my bills (yes, I still send them by snail mail). I went to the US Post Office on Bergen Avenue, but that was packed, too, with a line stretching nearly out the door. They removed the stamp vending machines some time ago. Walking back, I noticed the UPS Store at 924 Bergen; they must have stamps!

I was the only one in the store. I walked up to the man behind the counter (one of the owners, it is a franchise) and asked how much a book of 20 stamps was.

"$9.40," he replied.

"Great," I said, but looking at my wallet, I was out of cash. I took out a VISA debit card to make the purchase, as they have on a sticker saying they accept it on the front counter.

The owner pointed at a sign above the register. "We have a $10 minimum on credit card purchases," he said.

Okay, I thought. It's only $0.60 more to hit $10, so I might as well get a pen or something too.

When I asked to put something else on my tab, he said, "Also, we only accept cash for stamps."

"This is a UPS Store," I said.

"Yes," he replied.

"I've sent packages, using postage, from here and paid on a debit card. What's the difference?"

He repeated what the sign said.

Now I got pissed. Hell hath no fury like a consumer scorned twice in one morning, and I am a friggin' pit bull in the morning.

VISA itself states clearly in its policies that merchants are not allowed to set minimum purchases when accepting debit or credit cards; it's on their site. While it's bad for small businesses that VISA charges them processing fees, the volume of sales from debit card purchases make up for that and besides, it's not as if I was buying one stamp with my debit card - I was $0.60 shy of the minimum.

Instead of arguing, I went back to work and printed out two things: a copy of VISA's policy guidelines that specifically state merchants cannot set minimum purchases, and a copy of the UPS Store FAQs that states they sell stamps; not cash only for stamps, just stamps. With that in hand, I went back to the store.

"I would like to buy some stamps," I said. "And I would like to use my debit card. Please read the sections of VISA's policy regarding minimum purchase amounts and the UPS Store FAQ and if you do not sell me these stamps, I will report you to both VISA and the UPS Store."

Actually, I had no intention of doing any such thing. I really sympathized with him, but now it was personal. Plus, I had no desire to fill out a bunch of paperwork ratting out a guy trying to make a living. He sold me the stamps, a bittersweet victory.

After work, I remembered I needed cat food, so I went to a place I knew and dreaded as a rip off joint: the Deli Plus in the Journal Square PATH Station.

This is one of the few places open 24 hours, but I had been royally screwed here once before. I bought a few things on the way home from work: milk, some mac and cheese, some yogurt and a can of Maxwell House coffee. They rang everything up and put it all in a plastic bag and the prices matched, but when I got home and put everything away, there was no coffee. I walked back to the store and said I never got my coffee. They denied it. Their receipts are not itemized, so I had no way to prove it. Then after about 15 minutes of arguing, a manager at the store reached down behind the counter and... found my can of coffee! The cashier had pulled a sleight of hand and slipped it under the counter when I was not looking. He gave me the coffee and I stalked off, promising never to return.

I decided to put my tech to work and took out my Android G1, with a great app called Compare Everywhere. You use the G1's camera to scan the barcode and then it connects to a database to show you alternate prices in your area. Other great apps like this for the G1 include ShopSavvy and SnapTell. I checked out their Iam's Indoor Cat dry food and Friskies wet food (canned).

Iam's price at PetCo: $8.99
Iam's price at Deli Plus: $11.79

Friskies' price at PetCo: ~ $0.51 ($12.34 for a 24 pack)
Friskies' price at Deli Plus: $0.79

I went to the C-Town on Bergen Avenue instead. Although the cheapest they had there was $9.69 for the Iam's and $0.65 for the Friskies, it was a much better deal.

Sunflower Deli: I give you a pass, because it was rather busy and you do have awesome breakfast food to go, and great tasting French Vanilla coffee.

UPS Store: you're on my watch list.

As for Deli Plus, burn in hell you scam artists.

Here are some things to do so you don't get ripped off:

1) Don't let them rush you out the door. After you buy, count your change and add up the totals. If they charged you more than 7% sales tax, you've been ripped off. (It is against the law to charge sales tax on unprepared food items, unless it is candy or pet food.)

2) If you are unsure, ask the price. If it sounds ridiculous, haggle, or leave.

3) Keep your eye on the ball. Make sure they are not overcharging you for some things when they ring you up, and make sure they did not charge you for something you didn't buy.

4) Although minimum purchases for credit or debit cards are against the policy for all credit/debit card issuers, err on the side of the little guy. Don't buy little things with a debit card, but don't take any b.s. either. If they say they accept credit/debit cards, then they have to. Talk to the person ringing you up, and maybe they will cut you slack for minimums.

5) Shop smart. Check other prices and go elsewhere if you have to.

6) Don't be afraid to go nuclear when it comes to asserting your rights, but consumer violence will only get you in more trouble. If they are being fascist about it, walk away and de-escalate the situation.

7) Tell your friends, family and co-workers where to go and where not to go. Use word of mouth.

Finally, small business owners take note: times are rough, prices are high, and the reality is that we still need to buy things to live. I'd rather buy from you than Target or Wal-Mart, but not if you're going to ream me every time I set foot in your store.

Do not, under any circumstances, follow this shopkeeper's example:

All politics is local at Jersey City Little League game.

2009-04-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

Nothing quite says spring in the United States like the opening day of Little League baseball.

For me, this was a staple of boyhood. The ill-fitting socks, the over-sized helmet sliding down in front of your face when you tried to swing, your parents cheering from the stands, all those days spent sitting with your teammates in a dusty dugout drinking Gatorade, and the inevitable half-hearted "good game" hand shaking line up at the end. If you were a good player, you got bragging rights over everyone else, but if you caused the final out for your team, woe to you at recess the next school day.

Back then, I knew the whole starting line up of the '86 Mets. I played catcher like my idol Gary Carter until my dad objected that I might get hit in the head with a wild swing, after which I was put out to pasture in left field. I think the highlight of my Little League career was when I hit a triple with bases loaded and brought in three runs, a feat only to be matched when I overthrew the first baseman and hit the first base coach (his dad) in the face with the ball - his dad wore glasses, and paramedics had to be called.

Ah yes, who doesn't love a good baseball game? So it was great to see the parade of Pershing Field Little Leaguers down Central Avenue this Saturday in the Heights.

Now, I am a firm believer that the best way to cover anything is to do so from the inside, so the folks from One Jersey City gave me a button and let me tag along with them as they handed out campaign postcards while walking down Central along the parade route.

(Note to other campaigns: I'm a cheap date. Give me a button and let me write about it and I'll happily go canvassing with you, too.)

While this is probably a violation of some unwritten code of journalistic ethics, I was never trained as a journalist; call it an ethnography if you will.

The event proved once again former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's maxim that "all politics is local."

The major council candidates for Ward C and D were there, as well as Mayor Healy, and besides being a good campaign opportunity, it showed that the need for community recreation and youth programs is a big part of life in a city.

I hope this is a message the campaigns received loud and clear.

At the game, I was introduced to a woman named Susan, who was running the concession stand for the Washington Park Association. Her daughter sang the national anthem to kick the game off. They were so understaffed that before I knew it, I was conscripted into service to help out.

Ever used a deep fryer? The oil takes a long time to heat up.

No french fries for you!

Afterward, I tagged along again as the campaigns walked the beat, passing out literature on Central Avenue.

Along the way I met Adela Rohena, independent candidate for Ward C, Jim Carroll, running for Ward D on the Manzo slate, and saw an amazing display of old school campaigning as incumbent city councilman Bill Gaughan and his crew walked down Central Avenue, literally shouting out their campaign message to anyone within earshot - and being tailed by a heckler from a rival campaign who kept shouting back.

Just when I thought I had seen it all, one of the Manzo Mobiles - a van covered in Manzo signs with a loudspeaker on the top - drove past. I was immediately reminded of the Blues Brothers for some reason.

[Note: since original post, embedding has been disabled. But you can still view it here:]
It's 106 miles to Chicago...

Finally, tired, out of postcards and with a dead battery on my phone, I called it a day.

Local events like this are hard to pin a candidate on. What campaign in its right mind would not support programs like Little League baseball? That's like kicking the Easter Bunny and car-jacking Santa's sleigh.

Of course the candidates support it, and in a crowded field where every vote counts, no campaign can afford not to make a presence at local events like this. But for the kids involved, it won't matter to them in 20 or 30 years which candidate shook who's hand.

Long after the names are forgotten, all these kids will remember is that sweet moment they hit a triple with loaded bases to win the game. And that is something us grown-ups need to realize.

For more photos of the opening ceremony, check out NJ.com.