Time to Turn the Page

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes a good point today: 9/11 is over.

9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

I think he's right. We cannot forget, but we mustn't endlessly dwell on 9/11. It's starting to change who we are, and not for the good.

Sometimes Jon Stewart Isn't Funny

Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed author Stephen Hayes who has just published a biography of Vice President Dick Cheney and is an admirer of the Vice President. He makes an argument that Mr. Cheney is a straight-shooter and the kind of honest leader America needs more of. (I don't know how to avoid this awkward sentence ending)

Jon Stewart, as most folks know, is not an admirer of the Vice President. For most of the interview, he maintained his usual act of the polite, but sarcastic skeptic. Towards the end, though, when he asked why Cheney and the Bush team as a whole insists on attacking and denigrating those who question their war, rather than engaging in open and honest debate, Stewart drops his act and speaks from the heart.

"...stop making the rest of us feel like idiots when we question their strategy in the war on terror..."

"They've seemingly gone out of their way to belittle people..."

"They keep saying that we don't understand the nature of this war. And critics keep saying 'we understand the nature of it; you've been doing it wrong.'"

"I think there is a real feeling in this country that your patriotism has been questioned by people in very high-level positions. Not fringe people."

By this point Stewart is simply speaking as himself. At the end, he makes an attempt to return to his usual persona and goes out of his way to thank Hayes for his appearance.

Media Matters has more on this interview. There were several issues involved and they have more details on some of the personal attacks that Jon Stewart has faced.

But to me, this is one of those wonderful moments when John Stewart drops his clown act (which I like) and speaks with devastating honesty. He did it when he nailed Crossfire back in 2004.

I realize that the Daily Show satire is informative and affective, but I'd like to see him speak this way more often.

Could Crowdsourcing Work Here?

There's an interesting article up this morning on the Annenberg School for Communication's Online Journalism Review on the subject of "crowdsourcing."

In A journalist's guide to crowdsourcing, Robert Niles defines crowdsourcing as using the web to organize the public at large as another source of information for a news organisation.

Crowdsourcing, in journalism, is the use of a large group of readers to report a news story. It differs from traditional reporting in that the information collected is gathered not manually, by a reporter or team of reporters, but through some automated agent, such as a website.

Stripped to its core, though, it's still just another way of reporting, one that will stand along the traditional "big three" of interviews, observation and examining documents.

There are drawbacks, and cautions, and plenty of effort needed to make it work, but the idea is one that I think we've all been moving towards, if not particularly smoothly or directly, for some time.

This article helped me bring into focus thoughts I've been having lately about two related phenomenons in Delaware. One has been the growth of an increasingly self-aware Delaware Blogging Community. The other has been the News Journal's so far uneven Reader Comments system.

Both show the energy and interest that exists among Delawareans about the news and issues of the state. Both also, however, show the tendency of "regular folks" to give-in to their prejudices and preconceived ideas.

Obviously this is worse among an unfortunate minority of the commenting readers on the News Journal site, but Delaware's bloggers also can fall into bad habits and habitual rants. The bloggers tend to be a bit more disciplined in their writing and the community that has grown up among the regular bloggers has started to act as a form of editorial board. But we could do better.

A news organization's "crowdsourcing" could be another facet of the work that we've been doing. If properly designed, and maintained, and edited, it could add many more voices to the mix.

And that might be a very good thing.

I Thought This Must Be A Joke

But it is not. It is simply tragic irony that Russia is sending an expedition 14,000 feet below the surface of the Arctic Sea to plant a Russian flag at on the sea floor below the north pole.

According to the news reports I've heard, Russia is making a symbolic claim while also searching for geological evidence to support a claim of about half of the Arctic Sea. Why?

Melting ice in the Arctic has raised hopes of accessing energy reserves.

Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic, thought to contain oil, gas and mineral reserves, has been challenged by other powers, including the US.

So. Because of climate changes, arguably the result of our (humanity as a whole) over-use of fossil fuels, the sea ice is retreating, making it easier to access the supposed so-far untouched cache of fossil fuels under the Arctic Sea.

And the natural reaction to that fact is a determined effort to lay claim to, extract, and burn more fossil fuels?

I think that kind of sucks.

Some Newspaper Editor Has My Sense of Humor

This headline from today's News Journal is simply wonderful:

Md. sex-ed plan includes sex education

The accompanying text explains that the Maryland Board of Education has ruled that the Sex-Ed curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland, may indeed include educational information about sex.

A Simple Rule

Two stories on the News Journal web site this morning crystallized a thought that's been taking shape in my mind for a while now: Don't be a Jackass.

In the first story, a group of University of Delaware students are in some trouble for dressing up in costumes for a Cinco de Mayo party that seem to have been inspired by the worst possible racist stereotypes of Latinos. Photographs ended up, as they tend to do, on-line. Local Latino groups were not amused.

To their credit, the students appear to realize that they were being jerks, and have apologized.

The second story is that of attorney Richard Abbott, who has been reprimanded by the Delaware Supreme Court for "undignified or discourteous conduct." He submitted a brief in one of his many lawsuits comparing a board of appointed citizens to a group of monkeys:

"A citizen board does not mean that its members are given license to ignore the legal standards which govern their decisions. Otherwise the county would be permitted to appoint a group of monkeys . . . and simply allow the [county] attorney to interpret the grunts and groans of the ape members." (This quote from Mr. Abbott's brief is from the excellent Delaware Grapevine coverage of this story)

Attorney Abbott is loudly complaining the reprimand is a product of political correctness and violates his free speech rights. He says he broke no laws.

That's true, but he was being a jerk and I think that the court is within its rights to reprimand a member of the bar for being a jerk.

My new golden rule comes from a novel I read recently. I read widely and shallowly, for sheer pleasure, and so can't recall what the novel was, nor who the author. But I do remember that the novel was set in a small town that a sheriff had successfully policed for decades by holding everyone to one simple rule: Don't be a Jackass.

We all have free speech rights. But we also have a responsibility to not be jerks about it. We're not five-year olds, though we often sound like it.

There are, as I write this, about 100 reader comments on the UD/Cinco de Mayo story on the News Journal web site. I sampled a few earlier in the day. Based on the comments left on the News Journal web site -- on this story and on others I've read lately -- the readers of that paper, at least on-line, are mean, racist, xenophobic, and largely anonymous.

And, being anonymous, they feel free to violate that first principle of civilized society: Don't be a Jackass.

Another Delaware Blogger in the News

Justin Kates, who blogs from the University of Delaware and about his avocation -- combining amateur radio and homeland security work -- is a subject of a story in the News Journal this morning.

The story, 19-year-old heads state's ham radio emergency corps, is part of a News Journal investigative series on Delaware's use of federal Homeland Security grants.

I am interested in this series. I do a fair amount of work with the state's Homeland Security agencies. Geospatial data is a key element in the information systems that support crime prevention and investigation, emergency management and Homeland Security. And it is the case that some of the federal grant funding that Delaware receives is helping to support the maintenance of important geospatial data sets.

In my view not enough federal Homeland Security grant funding is being used for geospatial data, of course, but that will be the subject for another day.

I was also interested in the story because I know Justin, not only as a fellow blogger but as a skinny, bright kid several years ahead of my eldest in school. I used to see him at school events and I still see his sister, who is between my two girls in age.

The News Journal questions why we have a 19-year old in charge of the Delaware Communications Corps. That may be a fair question. It is true that Justin Cates is a mature young man, and I have no doubt about his passion and intelligence. But it does seem unusual.

On the other hand, we do have a tradition of organizing ourselves on an ad-hoc basis. Our fire protection is handled (and very well) by a large number of mostly volunteer fire companies who carefully guard their autonomy, but generally work well together to help protect our safety.

My own Delaware Geographic Data Committee owes its existence in part to legislation that enables it, but more to the fact that I say, and a sufficient number of GIS leaders in state and local agencies say, that it exists.

This isn't necessarily a bad way to do some things. An informal, collegial organization can be quite effective. There does come a point, however, where that organization must become more formal in order to continue to be effective.

The question is: what parts of the Homeland Security effort have reached that point?

The Weird World is a Small World

When I saw this headline on the News Journal web site this morning, I felt drawn to the story, and not just because it may be the single greatest headline ever written:

Mouse makes off with man's dentures

When I clicked on the story, I was surprised to find the dateline "Waterville, Maine."

Waterville is where Colby College, my alma mater, is located. I spent four great years in that small town. I saw many things and learned a great deal.

I never saw denture-swiping rodent.

A Mr. Bill Exner lost his dentures. He eventually found them, dragged off to the mouse's lair in the bedroom wall. They retrieved (and boiled) the dentures, but the story is not yet complete.

The mouse apparently isn't done. It frequently comes out and stares at Exner, his wife said.

''He's taunting him -- I swear he's taunting him,'' Shirley Exner said.

Don't You Mean....

A headline on the WGMD News RSS feed caught my eye yesterday. They ran a short news item about a fire in a local chicken house.

The headline -- Millsboro poultry house fire - chickens spared -- left me thinking, "Yes, but for how long?"

I think the lede could be re-written. They ran:

Fire crews saved 35,000 chickens from becoming dinner after fire broke out in a poultry house in Millsboro Wednesday afternoon.

It more accurately might read:

Fire crews saved 35,000 chickens so that they eventually will become dinner after fire broke out in a poultry house in Millsboro Wednesday afternoon.

I think we all know that those chicken houses aren't housing pet chickens.

Literalists' Litany of Complaint: #367 -- At the End of the Day

I keep hearing various spokesfolks use the phrase "at the end of the day" to wrap-up a thought. As in, "of course the Iraqi army needs more training and support and yes, we shouldn't have disbanded that army, but at the end of the day the Iraqis will have to govern themselves."

At the end of the day? Why not at the start of the day? And what about over lunch?