Morning After in America

David suggests...

...a new measure of a presidency: How many TV shows about fictitious presidents do we need to get the taste of the current one out of our mouths for at least a few minutes?"

and references the Reagan era as the simplistic "morning in America."

If Ronnie was morning, then W could be considered the "morning after," at least according to his capabilities and performance.

Stretching the metaphor, Clinton seems to fit as precursor to this hung over morning after.

What Next Now?

Cut taxes for my buds. Check.
Give my other buds some govmint jobs. Check.
Stick around long enough to nominate some justices. Check.
Redeem daddy and Dick by going after Sadaam. Check.
Win war on terrorism. Making progress, heh, heh.
Win war on drugs. Making progress, heh, heh, heh.
Get some contracts for infrastructure projects. Check.
Stop stem cell work. Almost, at least here.
Make everyone "decent." On the way.
What else?

How about taking resources from the two wars mentioned above, and send them to the video store?

Now that's offensive.

[Linkage via Dan Gillmor]

...later...Jeff adds to the growing groundswell of "disgusted disapproval," of which I approve.

Unnatural Disaster

Wired News asks "How Vile is Katrina's Toxic Goo?" The hurricane was a natural disaster. What happened in New Orleans was unnatural -- the natural result of a lack of levee maintenance, a lack of superfund cleanup, a lack of planning/execution of a response to a predicted event, a lack of coastal wetlands protection, a lack of tax/budget funds to do any of this, and misuse of tax/budget funds that were available. More than enough blame to go around.

I'm tired of hearing it referred to as a "natural" disaster.

Blogger/Geek Dinner with Stormhoek

As previously mentioned elsewhere, I attended a "Geek Dinner" in New York on Thursday night (My Flickr photoset, and Josh's). Set up in order that a London blogger and self-described media influencer might meet some interested (and, it turned out, interesting) folks in the NYC area while on this side of the pond, it also served as a North American introduction to Stormhoek a new South African winery known best over here among the blognoscenti for being virally blog-flogged by Hugh Mcleod.

(Sheesh. Did I get carried away there with the blogisms or what?)

It should be no surprise that a fair proportion of the 15 or so attendees were from the intersection of the web, marketing, and PR, some of who were visibly salivating at the possibility of getting in front of Heath Row of Fast Company Now fame, whose name was on the wiki planned attendee list. I want to assume that Heath actually intended to show but was waylaid, however, the idea of seeding sign-up lists with well known personages of influence...well...let's just say it intrigues those of the darker, skeptical bent. (No evidence of this here, but that just shows with my mind goes.)

Some of the conversation surrounded the reason for Adriana's visit to the US -- her participation in a big corporate communications conference at a well-known pharmafirm in New Jersey. Interesting to listen to her response to the big corp ways of doing things, with teleprompter monitors and buttoned down presentations. Clearly coming from the Web 2.0 age of collaborative, highly interactive gatherings, there was a tinge of impatience in her reaction to the old fogey way of doing things. I tried to point out that those of us who live on the edge tend to forget that we are still out on the edge, and that big corporate executives are not yet ready to make the same leaps that free-living open source developers do. They got to their positions of power and influence by playing by the old rules, and one shouldn't expect them to easily change. Fortunately, Adriana was asked back for a follow-up conversation, so there's always a chance for evolution where revolution doesn't take hold.

In the small world department, the evening provided a meatspace meeting with Bill Seitz, who has dropped a comment or two on my Focused Performance blog in the past. There was another attendee at my end of the table, Theresa Brigandi, whose current entry in her resume sounds a lot like my own day-to-day role at DigitalGrit. And in chatting up my work at DG, I found out that attendee Mike Hudack recently worked with one of my co-workers. Mike, along with attendee Charles Hope, is working some interesting stuff in the media serving area, centering on blip.tv.

In the comestibles department, the dinner was held at Two Boots in Grand Central Terminal. Cheesy garlic bread, garlic knots, and variety of not-bad pizza, including a cajun-tinged version with shrimp and andouille. The Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc was a nice light, crisp, highly drinkable quaff, maybe a bit overpowered by the heavy pizza flavors, but worth checking out once it really arrives in full distribution. One aspect of it that garnered some conversation was the screw-top cap. The industry has been moving toward this solution, as an effective way of protecting the product from bad corkage. Some of my favorite wines, including Vin Gris de Cigare from forward-looking vineyard Bonny Doon, use screw caps with no noticeable deterioration in quality.

A good time was had by all, including myself, despite the intense humidity of the evening, and arriving via the sweatbox of the NYC Subway.

Technorati Tags: GrandCentral, GeekDinner, Stormhoek

Flickr Tags: GeekDinner, GrandCentral, Stormhoek

American Red Cross

American Red Cross - Credit Card Contribution -- Enough said.

What Next?

I've been in a funk this week, not unlike mid-September, 2001, but probably more progressive as every bit of news out of New Orleans is more and more depressing. At least the aftermath of 9/11 seemed to be a coming together. There is a lot of that, but the big headlines and lead stories about shootings and lootings and bodies in the streets for days sounds more like a third world civil war than a modern US city.

And the implications yet to arise are, I suspect, still significant and have the potential to make this week's devestation and debacle pale in comparison, as dislocated people span out across the south. I agree with Doc Searls that this will be a turning point for a lot of what has been neglected in our nation, for good as well as otherwise...

"This event will change the country as much as 9/11 did, and perhaps even more so. After Katrina, we will again begin investing in real homeland security, real infrastructure, real caring for the civilizing natures of vital cities and family farms, of small towns and real communities, and government bodies that care more about their people than the high-dollar sources of election funding.

"This event won't have ripple effects. The consequences will be tidal: on transportation, on agriculture, on lumber and other supplies, on retailing, on churches and on citizens across the country who will need to take on the burden of caring for refugees and helping others start new lives.

"Katrina also force us to face a subject even Demoncrats have stopped talking about, although it lurks beneath everything: class. When the dead are counted, most of them will have been poor. Count on it.

"This thing is a huge reset button on politics as usual. Along with everything else."

Here's hoping the response is not a war on weather.

-- Later --

Katrina has hit little bit closer to home. Getting away from the big not-so-easy, I realized that one of the towns hit was Gulfport, Mississippi, home of Carol Lacy, a teacher I "know online" at Bayou View Elementary School there. Carol has been a participant in our Global Virtual Classroom program for the last two years, and her class was on the team that built a Special Merit website in that program's primary school division.

The website for the Gulfport School System seems to be down. Not a good sign. Last year, a school from Malaysia had to drop out of the GVC program because of the tsunami. A school in Kuwait went quiet when the war in Iraq started. In our first year, a school in Tashkent was disrupted when rebel shootings broke out in their city. We at GVC talk a lot about bringing kids closer together by understanding what their counterparts are doing on the other side of the world. It would be nicer if the big events weren't always so negative. I guess we'll have to be satisfied with the big little events that happen in their teams.

I never guessed, however, how close we who run the program could get to the ongoing participants as well. Thoughts are with you, and your students, families and community, Carol.

Sad Insanity

Thinking back to last year's Tsunami, I don't really remember reports of widespread looting and gunfire aimed at those trying to help. Sad.