First there was slow food and then came slow money. Dan Gillmor proposes that we add slow news to the list.

I’ve long been a slow news advocate. Partly this is because I can’t keep up. I’ll admit it. The Amazon (it’s a river–look it up) of information that comes my way every day threatens to drown me.

Some examples:

1. I have on my desk several books that I’ve promised to review, and by the time I get to them they may well be in their publisher’s remainder pile. When will I find time?
2. President Obama walks the tight-rope of integrity swayed by the winds of public approval. Who has a catalog of the promises he made in 2008? Who has the list of achievements and failures regarding those promises? How are the stories of successes and failures presented?
3. What really happened at Fort Hood? Did some of the dead and wounded fall to “friendly” fire? Was the perpetrator a jihadist or just another nutbar with a gun?
4. The list goes on…

News from the 24 hour “news cycle” largely comprises publicity, propaganda, and/or entertainment. It is the fast food of journalism. It’s not good for us. It’s not healthy. It doesn’t even taste very good. Fast food journaists have abandoned the delivery of real information to people. They no longer share an obligation to INFORM. Today the obligation to increase share value for the shareholders of media properties trumps any frame of objectivity, truth-seeking, or public good.

The news cycle is an unforgiving Moloch incinerating information and always demanding more. We feed the fires every day and keep ourselves occupied gathering fresh fuel. In the USA, mass market news fills a grab bag of excitement and titillation. The race to be first with the news, or to nail down exclusive coverage is a perversity.

Marketing and public relations firms capitalize on the media’s hunger for content. Propagandists capitalize on the owners’ hunger for market share, and readers/viewers/listeners keep the market for “infotainment” alive. They find it easy to digest.

I’m reading David Swanson’s “Daybreak–Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.” I received the book a few months ago. The author and the publisher would have appreciated a review on or at least near the publication date. In fact, they were kind enough to include a news release about the book so, strictly speaking, I wouldn’t actually have to READ it. I could copy-type from the release. I could have had a scoop!

Day after day broadcasters, bloggers, and print journalist editorial staff spin propaganda aimed at influencing their audience. The boundaries between editorial opinion and objective information gathering and distribution have long since fallen to the exigencies of the infotainment market. I wrote yesterday about the EFF’s release of thousands of pages of documents they received from the government in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. All that informastion is grist for the mill of slow journalism. The challenge will be to make the slow news EFF story interesting enough to trump quotidian half-baked bullshit like the recent balloon boy ballyhoo.

Each of us has limited bandwidth for information. I think we should use it to prepare stories and/or to consume content more nutritious than the stuff Rupert Murdoch is trying to feed us.

In global news, updating this Tajikistan News Net story, Curtis Lavelle Vance got a life sentence. He was spared the death penalty because his mama didn’t raise him right. I’m okay with that. The death penalty sucks.

On the tech front, and celebrating our commitment to “slow news,” the text of Richard Bennett’s April 2009 testimony to the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet is available here (pdf). It contains some gems of disinformation couched in passive voice, a style adopted by bureaucratic tools when they want to avoid specific attribution or responsibility. For example, “It’s suspected that some botnets may be controlled by foreign intelligence services as they’ve shown up in interesting places, such as the Dalai Lama of Tibet’s offices in India;” and, “Keeping the Internet running smoothly is a difficult task in the best of times, and any practice that has a plausible connection with this goal should be seen as constructive and responsible, even if it requires accounting for usage and acting accordingly.” From the Himalayas to the secret rooms in telco facilities where Federal laws regarding privacy are broken, deep packet inspection keeps the world safe for democracy

Who has these suspicions about botnets at the ceiling of the world? Suffice it to say that THEY have eyes and ears everywhere. According to Bennett the unnamed THEY should be permitted to peek over our shoulders, to listen in on our conversations because THEY may need to account for usage in order to keep the Internet running smoothly.

Bennett is a raven wandering the halls of the House office buildings and croaking testimony rich in the forgotten lore of the 1980s. He touts concepts like Quality of Service and network management through the big central switches, larding his pitch with enough abbreviations and tech talk to impress congressional staffers. His is a corporate perspective, an establishment perspective. He sounds like a shill for Big Telco/Big Media/Big Government. His testimony wouldn’t be so damaging if he didn’t also claim to be a Democrat.

On a brighter note, according to a media release issued yesterday, EFF makes progress with its lawsuits against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice demanding information about telecommunications carriers’ efforts to get off the hook for their role in the government’s illegal electronic surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The struggle to expose the illegal eavesdropping of NSA and the complicity of telecommunications companies has been rewarded. Thousands of pages of records documenting telecom lobbying efforts and NSA spying are available on the EFF web site. You can dip in anywhere and see the process of big government butt coverage. The documents are linked here.

(To be continued)

My political compass and my moral compass are to a large extent congruent. How about yours?

Is this a compass or a map?

I think I’ve taken this quiz before and I haven’t moved much from the Gandhi/Dalai Lama quadrant. Probably haven’t made much progress walking the talk either. Thanks to Pa^2 for tweeting the link (and posting to posterous, and blogging it, and facebooking it….) Damn thing showed up everywhere this morning–meaning that Bill has got his online mindstream pretty well integrated I think.

Whittier wrote,

She comes in colors

The foot is yours; where’er it falls,
It treads your well-wrought leather,
On earthen floor, in marble halls,
On carpet, or on heather.
Still there the sweetest charm is found
Of matron grace or vestal’s,
As Hebe’s foot bore nectar round
Among the old celestials.

Rap, rap!–your stout and bluff brogan,
With footsteps slow and weary,
May wander where the sky’s blue span
Shuts down upon the prairie.
On Beauty’s foot your slippers glance,
By Saratoga’s fountains,
Or twinkle down the summer dance
Beneath the Crystal Mountains!

In Whittier’s day the the word “ugh” (or “ugg” or even “ug”) was simply a grunt, generally signifying laconic approbation.  Some say the word as applied to boots originated with Australian surfers in the late sixties or early seventies.  Others claim that the boot has been common in the outback for more than a century. None will question the use of “ugg” to describe a fleece lined sheepskin boot manufactured in Australia. There have been nasty legal battles fought by the marketeers of Decker’s Ugg Footwear against the manufacturers of ugg style boots everywhere.

I thought “Uggs” were a particular brand of Australian boot favored by co-eds, a boot perhaps to be worn with tight pegged pants, preferably levis–not Donna Karan parachute pants–a boot for bare legs dropping out of a kicky little dress that maybe skims the knee, a brand of boot as practical as it is pretty.

As it happens, “Ugg” is generic. There are a lot of boot makers with uggs to offer, notwithstanding Decker’s efforts to register the name as a trademark and prevent others from using it. So how do you sort the good uggs from the bad uggs?  There’s a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western about that, I think.

Sadly, now that Carrie Bradshaw is deep into re-runs, it is only the Manolo who informs me regarding the fashions of the feminine pedal extremities. And Manolo does not like the Uggs. They are too comfortable to please the Manolo. They are perhaps not fetishistic enough. They are simple in design, practical, affordable and attractive. Manolo likes the gaudy and the extravagant footwear. Uggs are anything but gaudy and extravagant.

Manolo does not like the uggs, but the ladies do. (And actually so do the gents. What’s not to like about a comfortable boot that keeps the foot cool in hot weather and warm when it’s cold)?

Once, the Manolo, he saw the aging minx the Shannon Doherty coming out of the Malibu Country Market, and she had on the Uggs and the miniskirt of the denim.

Perhaps she saw the Manolo frowning at the ugliness of her feetwear, for she scowled at the Manolo as if to say “you are the insect who is not worthy to gaze upon the shoes of the Shannon Doherty.”

Wikipedia says, “While in the boot, the sockless foot is in full contact with the sheepskin lining, thereby maximizing the insulative properties of the boot. The mid-calf shaft, while not encasing the entire lower foot in wool, further enhances the thermal qualities of the boot by encasing the ankle and lower portion of the leg. The wide, rounded toebox, wide shaft, and wide heelbox with a heel-less sole enhance comfort by providing a non-constricting space for the foot.”

Comfy, isn’t it? And oddly stirring, a bow to the erotic qualities of the fresh pedicure, polished toenails concealed in warm comfort. The Manolo probably doesn’t get that, but maybe he should take a closer look.

No Uggs were hurled

Quebecers stepped all over George W. Bush’s visit to Montreal on Thursday. Bush was on a tour promoting his soon to be ghost written autobiography. I liked the part about throwing shoes, but the burning in effigy? A little strong for my taste.

Police collected an odd assortment of shoes, including a slightly worn Jimmy Choo pony fur pump with snakeskin straps, and a patent leather Mary Jane with four inch spike heels by Manolo Blahnik that looked like it was fresh from Nieman Marcus.

No Uggs were found in the pile of confiscated footwear.

Manolo the shoe blogger has yet to weigh in with his impressions of the Montreal protest.

First, who was Swifty Lazar? It’s one of those names that has been embedded in my consciousness seemingly without antecedent. So, this morning, when–while following a thread from Improprieties–I happened upon a young fellow named Irwin Lazar, my thoughts swiftly turned to Swifty.

Swifty Lazar. The name stood out clearly in my mind, like the crisp label on a file folder in the well organized file cabinet of my awareness. The folder alas was empty.

Luckily the ‘pedia can frame an answer even if the question isn’t clear. Irving Paul “Swifty” Lazar was Bogart’s agent. And Bacall’s. And Cher’s. And Madonna’s. From pop cultural scribblers like Moss Hart and Larry McMurtry to famous literati like Nabokov and Tennessee Williams, Swifty represented them all.

He died in his eighties in 1993. Maybe Irwin is like a great grand-nephew or something.

Received the following email this morning.

I’m insulted.

Selling a slim chance at (fake) access to Democratic big-wigs is bad, but hiring Ron Popeil to write the ad copy just takes the cake.

Frank–

Picture it. You and your guest are sitting at dinner with some of your favorite Democratic Members of Congress, including Speaker Pelosi. Suddenly the room comes to a hush and before you know it, President Obama is standing just a few feet away.

This doesn’t have to be a fantasy – it could be your reality!

Contribute $50, $75 or more today and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win a trip to Miami, Florida (airfare and hotel included). You and your guest will attend a dinner with President Obama on October 26th and get to hang out with leading Democrats from across America.

Join President Obama for Dinner

Now is the time when grassroots Democrats need to stand strong. Republicans are throwing everything they have behind their effort to kill health insurance reform and block our progressive agenda.

No lie is too outrageous and no attack is too ludicrous. From Rush Limbaugh jumping up and down with glee that America didn’t get the 2016 Olympics to some hack at the NRCC actually saying Speaker Pelosi should be put “in her place.” What century are these guys living in?

But if we don’t have the resources to fight back, nobody will.

Contribute $50, $75 or more today and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win a trip to Miami, Florida (airfare and hotel included). You and your guest will attend a dinner with President Obama on October 26th and get to hang out with leading Democrats from across America.

I know how much you support President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and how hard you fight every day to help him and Democrats in Congress move America forward.

Contribute today and you could even be lucky enough to come to Miami and tell him about it yourself.

Thanks,

Paul Begala

P.S. With Republicans throwing everything they have behind their effort to kill health insurance reform and block our progressive agenda, now is when grassroots Democrats need to stand strong. Contribute today and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win dinner with President Obama on October 26th.

We have a new kitchen floor. Maple. It’s a nice replacement for the gray asphalt tile that we put down when we added the new kitchen almost twenty years ago. The new floor extends down the hall into the laundry room. All the old gray tile is gone. We laid ceramic tile in the bathroom and the rear entryway where they butt up against the new maple.

The new floor mandated major refurbishment and appliance upgrades. We had the granite versus Corian debate about new kitchen counters. Corian won. I’ve already scratched it, but the finish was easy to restore.

Today I have to call Casablanca about the new ceiling fan qua light fixture. It’s a beautiful fan but somehow they left the blades out of the box when they shipped it.

The work remaining for me involves washing and painting the woodwork and refinishing the cabinet doors. I’m waiting for the saw dust to settle.

Drizzly morning and I left a wheelbarrow load of popcorn out last night. I better shuck it today and get the ears under cover or it will get moldy. I would have preferred to leave it in situ in the garden a little longer before picking but I was in a race with the deer to harvest it. The crows and raccoons were also in the competition.

If I’d left it under cover in the shed, then I wouldn’t have to shuck it right away. But I didn’t, and so it goes.

(Here’s a good link about harvesting popcorn: http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/node/1416