It seemed like the only thing missing from this year's election was something to humble the media and the bloggers. That need has now been filled by a fake expert from a phony think tank....Martin Eisenstadt doesn't exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.Eisenstadt is really Eitan Gorlin, who created the character along with Dan Mirvish as part of a long-term hoax intended as a promotional stunt to develop a television show. According to the Times, they have fooled several newspapers, TV networks and many bloggers, even after some of those who had been fooled published warnings about the hoax.
I don't know, because I remember the discussion about Africa, my concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue, as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska's investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars, I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen anymore.Wait... what?
Mr. Gorlin said they chose the name because “all the neocons in the Bush administration had Jewish last names and Christian first names.”And for the Institute? They named it after one of the least popular presidents in US history. That seemed believable.
... while we will certainly be printing the same paper we have since 1886 every Wednesday, there is little doubt that news-gathering and news distribution is moving in a digital direction.These are very local weekly newspapers, and they have for a long time provided a close-focus look at their communities. But things are moving faster than the printing press can produce a tabloid-sized newspaper:
There are advantages and disadvantages to a weekly paper. On one hand, we get nearly a full week to work and develop stories that happen between Wednesday and Sunday. But then again, everything that happens between those days is, well-developed or not, old news by the time it gets to the paper.I hope this means that these papers will continue their in-depth reporting, but will update on an interim basis. They have included lots of RSS feeds, so we can read along with them. And, when we do, we should take notice of their advertisers. That's how this business works, after all.
The News Journal, Delaware's top daily newspaper, recently made-over its on-line offerings and I am not very happy with the result. It's still better than the other Delaware daily, which offers essentially no on-line content, but I find the new News Journal site hard to use and off-putting.
I was pleased to see a positive profile of the cartoonist Rob Tornoe in the Wilmington News Journal today. Mr. Tornoe draws for a New Jersey political web site (politicker.com) but was raised partly in Delaware and lives in Newark. He may draw New Jersey, but he's one of ours. And, I am a fan. His RSS feed has been a part of the "art" category in my Google Reader set-up for a while now.
We were in northern Virginia this week-end for a dance competition in Crystal City. Our daughters were in dance classes all day on Saturday and part of Sunday; they performed in competition Saturday evening. They did quite well, thank you.
I found myself drawn to this recent headline from The Onion: Nation's Crumbling Infrastructure Probably Some Sort Of Metaphor.I find myself missing that sort of irony-heavy satirical commentary now that the TV-writers' strike has darkened the nation's airwaves. I wonder where to turn for the acerbic commentary I once depended on The Daily Show to provide."Everywhere you turn you see improperly maintained railways, structurally deficient bridges—not to mention billions of gallons of untreated sewage flowing directly into our groundwater," said Adam Perry, a representative for the ASCE. "Is there an underlying message here? There are so many layers, and each one is so subtle and nuanced, that I'm hesitant to make any kind of blanket statement about what this means 'for America.'"
"I think our overstretched and increasingly obsolete infrastructure might symbolize something important," Perry added. "But what?"
Independent Newspapers, Inc., wants me to pay $145 a year to view the contents of the Delaware State News on-line. Up until today, INI had offered a limited selection of local news stories in an ad-heavy, if not terribly exciting, web 1.0 format.
This morning, their old "news" link led to a statement that one can now read the ENTIRE newspaper on-line. If one subscribes. And that some local news will still be included in their Newszap forums.Thanks for your email. To be honest with you, we reached the conclusion that we could no longer give away our newspaper content for free. We are proud of the work our staff members are doing and believe we’re making a difference for thousands of people every day.I think it's a form e-mail. I sent my question in to two separate contact links and got the same e-mail back each time. I followed the link they sent and, after a bit of searching, and working my way through a name and address data collection page (Harrington J. Millworthy, IV, at your service), but eventually I found the Subscription Rates page (above left).
We hope you will consider purchasing an e-Subscription, which will give you every page of every edition of the newspaper in an easy-to-read format and with full search capabilities. To make this option more attractive, we have an introductory offer of 2 years for the price of 1, which we think is a great deal!
City looks at comp planIt's only when you click through that you realize that that headline has been up there since September 12. That meeting is already over.
MILFORD — City planners will meet in special session at 7 tonight to begin revising Milford’s comprehensive plan.
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.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.
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.
Suit tries to put the 'Christ' back in 'Halloween'This was the headline on an AP story on the News Journal web site this afternoon. A family in suburban Philadelphia are suing school officials because their 10-year old wasn't allowed to dress as Jesus Christ for Halloween.
GOOD! About time people of Christian faith stood up to the anti-christian morons in this country with their hypocracy and whinny crybaby I'm offended crap. God bless you son, may you win many times over.*I followed the links back to the whole wonderful collection of SaneHatter's thoughts. This is a very unpleasant and angry person.
Sound Off is supposed to be a part of the paper that gives a chance for the "people" to speak. The problem with that concept, however, is that the average person is completely stupid and misinformed and basically just wants to read their messages in the paper the next day.That sounds so familiar, though I will admit that I haven't read the Sound Off column in the State News for years. I can't take it. I do still read some of the comments on the News Journal's web site, though it pains me.
What a friggin moron. Gives a false name, most likely an undocumented alien, and a total moron to boot. Why is it that the second I read " a Georgetown man", did I suspect he was going to be hispanic. Go figure.If nothing else, having a look at some of the comments in Delaware County's paper makes me feel a bit better: it's not just here.
MADD has apparently developed a separate standard for politicians and police in its War on Drunk Driving.Taylor, it is worth pointing out, spends most of his time on "Bad Drunk Driving Laws, False Evidence and a Fading Constitution." At least, that's the subtitle of his blog.
For many years now I've written and lectured extensively on drunk driving litigation --on the science of blood and breath alcohol analysis, the flaws in breathalyzers, the ineffectiveness of field sobriety testing. In recent years, however, my focus has increasingly shifted to the gradual erosion of constitutional rights in DUI cases.Taylor is not the only DUI lawyer to chime in.
It is waging a public relations campaign to explain to the public that field sobriety evaluations are relative and not pass/fail. This is testimony that you would never hear on the witness stand from a police officer and should provide excellent fodder for able DUI attorneys in the area.What I don't understand is Mr. Creal's reference to "Benefit of Clergy."
The story seems to have taken on a life of its own with no end in sight and has turned into one of the most vicious, malicious, and cruel witch hunts in the history of the State of Delaware.I'm not sure that this e-mail was intended to serve as a "Jud's Rant." As of this writing (10:25 a.m., 1/15/07), it has not been added in the traditional Jud's Rant spot on First State Politics. It was, however, appropriated by Dan Gaffney and posted on the WGMD blog. I don't know whether this was Jud's intention or not.
Yes, there has been ridiculous speculation and hyperbole about Atkins; however, the anger amongst the laymen results in knowing that if this was THEM, they’d have been arrested, lost their license, and would now have a record.Finally, let me point to a MySpace posting (of all places) for one of the most thoughtful reactions
The singular focus on Atkins' particular case, however, obscures a larger and more-dangerous problem, in Delaware and, really, all over the place.He suggests that bars be provided with Breathalyzers and that they take the lead on keeping drunks out of their cars. That might help. He goes further, though, and points to a larger problem of our perception of alcohol:
DUI is practically a sport in Delaware. Start thinking of people you know who have a DUI on their record.. the list is probably longer than you think.
This is what truly bothers me: from the time you are young, it is beat into your head that alcohol is not really a drug. Remember MADD presentations in elementary school? They always talked about "drugs and alcohol." Drugs and alcohol?He concludes:
Think about what this means. Reasonable, educated people are coming into classrooms and telling your children that alcohol is somehow separate from other drugs. So is it any surprise that kids aren't that concerned about drinking? Look at some of these MySpace surveys that ask when you took your first alcoholic drink. I didn't until I was 18, and I think I held out the longest of anyone whose survey I read, besides possibly my sister, and I'm not even sure about that.
With all of the damage that alcohol does to people, how can it be the least-regulated drug in the world?RudeBwoy381, please move your writings to a platform less odious than MySpace. I'd like to read you more.
Is it true that there's a poster contest in the middle and high school sponsored by CAMP Rehoboth to recognize HIV and AIDS? Do other organizations like heart or cancer foundations, pregnancy care centers, Alcoholics Anonymous, or domestic abuse groups go into schools and tie up young people's emotions, energy and brains with their stuff?Okay. First let's check on that "is it true?" question. A Google search finds the CAMP Rehoboth web site, where a small amount of perusing shows us that, yes, CAMP Rehoboth did sponsor a Student Art Contest this fall as part of the local World AIDS Day activities.
CAMP Rehoboth chose to sponsor the Student Art Contest out of deep concern with the latest statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control. The data establishes that 50% of all new HIV infections occur in young people under the age of 25. In addition, national case surveillance data for people ages 13 to 24 revealed that the burden of HIV/AIDS falls most heavily and disproportionately on black and Hispanic youth. CAMP Rehoboth believes that accurate, age-appropriate information is our best hope for reducing these trends for our young citizens. By working with Sussex County school districts, CAMP Rehoboth hopes to ameliorate this situation.And yes, Ms. Johnson, quite a few other issues-based organizations sponsor student arts contests, essay contests, and the like. My daughters have both been winners in fire-prevention essay and art contests, and young people we know have won citizenship essay contests and that sort of thing. It can be rather a positive experience.
There's a whole page of support groups in the Delaware State News. If there's a private matter that a student needs help with, maybe a guidance counselor could direct the young person to a support group or a helpful foundation.I'm not sure why you would limit yourself to the State News, but directing kids to guidance counselors makes excellent sense. I quite agree.
I am not a gay-hater, but this example demonstrates that the gay agenda is being slyly and forcibly taught to children in schools. I think people should be aware of this, and I think CAMP Rehoboth should be kept out of our schools.You are not a gay-hater? Let's leave that to one side for the moment. I can say, though, that something can't be both "slyly" and "forcibly" done. I think those two adverbs are mutually exclusive.
