Edmund Burke

Never read Edmund Burke's "Speech to the Electors of Bristol," interesting speech if you have a minute or two spare.

Ohh...the slumbering fourth estate...

On The Media's Bob Garfield on newspaper coverage of the Sago Mine tragedy, "The Fourth Estate was simply trapped in the fourth dimension, the inescapability of time. The real miracle is that it doesn't happen more often."

I concur and this just in...Dewey Defeats Truman.

Full Article.

Anti-climatic

So today was the day. Howard Stern launched on Sirius satellite radio and I didn't really hear anything about it. Alito, missing journalists and a numbered of other stories clogged the news cycle and Howard Stern and his launch on Sirius was nowhere.

I am going to go out on a limb and say Sirius made a dumb, dumb decision paying Stern what he is getting.

The problem with 24-hour news...

I was sitting around the apartment reading and I had CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" on, but muted. I saw this super, "Construction worker rescued after falling into deep hole." So I thought to myself, "Really...Is that the story your going to have on at the bottom of the hour...Really???" So I popped on the audio and listened in. I mean there must be a better reason why they are covering this story, especially right at 4:30pm.

Nope...some construction worker, in Las Vegas, fell into a thirty foot trench. That was it that was the whole story and CNN ran with it for a good minute - minute-twenty with a live shot from a Vegas station and everything. I think this is the problem with 24-hour news.

Another Good Quote...

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."

-Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics

I found this quote very funny and interesting, considering my masters thesis is predicting the effects new media will have on the 2008 presidential election.

Great Quote...

"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities. That is the deeper problem of violence-laden television."

-George Gerbner to a Congressional subcommittee on communications in 1981.

George Gerbner, dean emeritus of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, died on December 24th. He is remembered for his research on the effects television violence on society. The above quote was included in the NYT obit and I thought, "Wow, can that be directly applied to 24-hour news and the Bush '04 campaign."

Censorship...

"BEIJING, Jan. 5 - Microsoft has shut the blog site of a well-known Chinese blogger who uses its MSN online service in China after he discussed a high-profile newspaper strike that broke out here one week ago.

The decision is the latest in a series of measures in which some of America's biggest technology companies have cooperated with the Chinese authorities to censor Web sites and curb dissent or free speech online as they seek access to China's booming Internet marketplace." Full NYT Article

That is creepy and apparently Yahoo has also complied with China. They gave information from a Yahoo mail account to the Chinese government, which led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist

What 2006 Will Bring...

Inspired by my brother's post looking back at 2005 and always a fan of sibling rivalry, I decided to one up him by not looking at what happen last but by writing about what I want to accomplish this coming year.

I mean don't get me wrong I did do a lot in 2005, but no point in dwelling on either the positives or the negatives of last year. Let us leave it at I made it through 2005 with my health, my sense of humor and a decent GPA.

2006 should be an interesting year and my goals my seem lofty, but that is why they are goals...to motivate me.

First and foremost I plan on starting and finishing my thesis, pursuant to completing a Master of Arts in Digital Storytelling from Ball State University. This is by far my number one priority for 2006. The one sentence that I wrote last semester will consume a large part of my life for the next year and I truly do look forward to it.

Next, I want to continue running and I want to take it to the next level. I have decided to start training for and want to try to complete a marathon this year. I am thinking the Chicago marathon on October 22 is my best bet, but that is still up in the air. I also want to try to run in the Columbus Distance Classic half marathon and the YMCA Muncie Mini Marathon. Again who knows if my life will allow me to run in all of those races, but as I mentioned these goals are lofty.

I also want to travel. I have always been busy with work and school and everything and I have really not traveled as much as I would have liked to have by this point. So I am going to try to fix that. One of my longtime friends, Kevin, and I are already planning on heading over to Germany during my spring break. So far our general idea is to hang out in Frankfurt for a while and maybe also hit up Berlin and Prague. It is still in the very early planning stages. I also want to head to Baltimore/Washington area again for a long weekend to hangout with my Dad and another longtime friend, Glenn. And I can even guess where I'll travel to during the summer or next fall. I can only plan a trip or two at a time.

Another thing I'd like to do this year is simply meet more people and learn more about people. I tend to get comfortable with a very small group of very close friends and keep everybody else at a distance. I think I want to meet more people and I want to try to figuratively kiss the prettiest girl, because you'll never regret trying to kiss the prettiest girl and getting shot down. But you'll always wonder what if...? That is not directed at any girl in particular. I just think I need to try something different.

I also have about a dozen books I'd like to read and a number of projects I'd like to work on over the next year, but those are boring and I think I'll put those in different lists. So look for a reading list and a things I'm working on list to be up here soon. Anyway, if you wasted your time reading all the way down to here...I think you realized that I also need to work on my writing this year.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has chosen Jon Stewart to host the 2006 Oscars. Good choice...way to go.

Full Article.

Did the BCS get it right?

I have been a huge fan of major college football ever since our hometown coach, Jim Tressel, left my alma mater and when down to Columbus to coach The Ohio State University Buckeyes and during those last five years I have always hated how the Bowl Championship Series works. But now I sit here on Thursday thinking that I have seen three of the best days of football in my life. Of the four BCS games, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Rose Bowl, three of them were with in three points and came down to the last seconds or over time. The only game that wasn't with in three points was a battle between two of the most storied teams in college football, OSU and Notre Dame, and it really was still a game up until five or six minutes left in the forth. So my question is did the BCS get it right? Were these the best eight teams and best four games they could be?

Also a sidenote about the BCS...You can purchase highlights from the four BCS bowl games from the iTunes store. I looked quick and the Fiesta Bowl file is over seventeen minutes and is priced at the iTunes regular $1.99.

Gigabeat

Microsoft announces the Gigabeat at the CES, which Cory Bergman of Lost Remote is blogging from. Check out both of them.

The Gigabeat is basically a portable a/v player, like the iPod, but it connects up to the media center PC. Therefore you can take stuff from TV straight to your portable player. Tivo and iPod is proposing the same thing, but there isn't at seamless...at least that is what I've heard.

Every Newsies Dream...

David Shribman, executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was able to realize every newsies dream when he stopped the presses after about half their run was printed. This was due to the "Joy to Horror" West Virginia miners story.

Although it came through sad circumstances, it is still fun to picture him running into a huge printing press room, hitting a huge red button, and yelling, "Stop the Presses."

Poynter's Full Story

Letterman vs. O'Reily

Letterman to O'Reily: "I have the feeling about 60% of what you say is crap."

Full Clip

What I am up to...

So yeah I haven't been bloggin as of late. Well at least for the last couple of months, but I hope to get in a routine this semester where I give myself an hour or so a day to read and write.

Anyway, I am in Youngstown right now, but I am leaving to go to Columbus for the weekend. I think I'll be sticking down there for New Years and for the OSU/ND game. Go Bucks!!!

I'll then be coming back here to Youngstown for a handful of days. On Saturday, I think I'll head back to Muncie to prepare for my second semester of grad school.

Next semester I'll be taking three classes and doing an independent creative project. My classes are:

ICom 602 - Foundations in Digital Storytelling 2
ICom 630 - Story Design and Development
Comm 614 - Contemporary Rhetoric and Public Issues

And my creative project is hopefully to finish a screenplay I started in undergrad.

But that's that and that is what I've been up to. Hopefully I'll start blogging again once I get back to school.

Good Stuff

We think it's time for Congress to heed the warning of George Orwell.

To that end, we're asking for your help: Mail us or drop off your tattered copies of "1984." When we get 537 of them, we'll send them to every member of the House of Representatives and Senate and to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.


A great editorial by The Oakland Tribune.

Going home...

So I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to head back to good ol' Youngstown. I have a lunch at noon and then I'll be heading out. I might swing by c-bus for a little while to see how its going there. Then eventually (somewhere between 7-9) I'll be back in the Mahoning Valley.

BSU and Game Show Network Partnership

"GSN, the spunky game-oriented network jointly owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Liberty Media Corp., Monday unveiled plans for an unusual collaboration between an ad-supported cable network and a major academic researcher, commissioning a study by Ball State University's Center for Media Design examining how people use interactive television in their daily lives." -Media Daily News article excerpt.

Ironically the pointer came from LostRemote.com. This is ironic because I work approx. 200 feet from the Center for Media Design.

Full Interview

Ahhhh...this is exactly what the web was meant for...NBC has announced that the full edited exclusive interview Brian Williams had with President Bush will be streamed at MSNBC. That is great. It's not like I am going to watch it, but I like that I can.

It will be posted at nightly.msnbc.com
Pointer by LostRemote.com

My school is richer than your school...

So Ball State University got re-granted by the Lilly Foundation. Woohoo...20 million dollars here we come.

Check out the IndyStar article.

End of the Semester Thoughts

So as everyone, or more precisely the two people whom regularly check this site, have noticed. I have not been updating the ol’ blog for a while. Unfortunately, I got busy with school and just with life and the blog got put on the back burner. I think I should be back to regularly posting at least for the next number of weeks.

I’m heading back to my Mom’s house in Youngstown on Friday and will be staying there for the next number of weeks. Then I’ll head back to Muncie for semester two of graduate school.

Here is a recap of semester one:

On school, I have had a great first semester, where I have been challenged to think and produce. I wrote what I think is a very good essay, entitled “Looking Toward 2008: New Media and Its Effects on the Political Process,” which takes a very small look at how new technologies might alter the face of the Presidential campaign in America. It is essentially a precursor to my thesis and has let me slightly arrange my thoughts for when I write my thesis next fall. I also produced a fifteen-minute documentary. “This Life.” is a slice-of-life style piece about a Christian skateshop and skatepark located in Muncie, Indiana. We will be sending it out over the next couple of months to a number of contests and festivals.

On life, I have made some great strides and some stupid decisions during the last three and a half months, but through it all I think I have made it through fine because of good friends and a great family. With friends who are willing to call you an asshole, when you’re being an asshole and a family who supports you no matter what you do, I wake up every morning asking myself how could I possibly fail. Along with those friends, I have met some amazing people over the last few months and I hope a number of these relationships last past the two years we’ll be here in Muncie. Don’t get me wrong some of these people and these relationships have driven me crazy at different points and drive me crazy now, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything in the world. My experiences here have taught me a lot about myself and have taught me a lot about what I value and what is important to me.

I have found that I value my family greatly and although I have had the sudden realization that my father is not superman during this semester, I have also found that he is a survivor and a hero. I have found my mother to be as supportive when I am away as when I was living at her house. I have found a countless number of things this semester and my family and my friends, new and old, have been with me through all of them.

That was my first semester. I have three left. As for next semester, I have two classes picked for sure and I am still deciding on a third. I’ll try keep everyone abreast of what is going on and I’ll try to start updating this again, well at least until it gets crazy again at the middle or end of next semester.