Saturday, January 24, 2009
They came to witness history. For some, the wait that began before dawn and ended as dusk announced its chilling approach was a new beginning. Or a turning point. But they all wanted to be there for history and for posterity. It was a night when it didn't seem to matter that the temperature was below freezing and the wind was cutting through the thickest overcoats. A night when it began to sink in that the once unthinkable had happened in America. And for once, the stars and their bling were overawed or eclipsed … Internet into overdrive as millions express Obama hopes: We feel that he is an inspiring figure
Hope Over Fear Obama should bring out the best in all of us
A New Era Of Responsibility? The Conundrum That Is Barack Obama
Emotions matter. People talk about hope and optimism as if they are fake, false things; phantasms that have nothing to do with the real world. Yet what historian would write about war without talking about the emotions of the time - fear, hatred, envy, revenge and, sometimes, the urge for peace? How can you understand the rise and fall of stockmarkets without comprehending the role of fear, greed and crowd psychology?
• ANALYSIS: Obama aims to involve entire US in economic turnaround --- 'Emotions matter. The hope created by Obama is a real and useful commodity . .; [Hey Google captures all analysis: Americans have high hopes for the presidency of Barack Obama, and the United States is being swept by a wave of optimism ; One of my favorite books is F. G. Bailey’s unjustly neglected masterpiece Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership Another Presidential Inaugural Speech ; This can only go so far. No government can ultimately rely on the printing press to keep everything pushing along. But I'll leave the last word to Lord Skidelsky: The crisis has rightly led to a revival of interest in Keynes. But he was a moralist as well as an economist. He believed that material wellbeing is a necessary condition of the good life, but that beyond a certain standard of comfort, its pursuit can produce corruption, both for the individual and for society. Key Ness ]
• · The most important thing in sport is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. 15 memorable quotes from Election 2008; As he assumed the presidency, Barack Obama declared that it was time to "set aside childish things," to put away "petty grievances," "worn-out dogmas" and "stale political arguments." He promised a new era of responsibility – suggesting that what has come before him was irresponsibility. Analysis: Obama's Speech
• · During World War II, George Orwell was unable to find a publishing house willing to publish Animal Farm, and several of them acknowledged that it was because they were uncomfortable with the provocative content (i.e., what they perceived as being criticism of Stalin at a time when the West considered the Russians a crucial ally). Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. How will the David Gregory theory of journalism apply to the Obama administration?; Last winter, I asked a national political correspondent I know about the media and Barack Obama - was it really as far in the tank for lanky Illinois Senator as it appeared to be? Yeah, he said. And the reason was simple: "Obama is a growth industry." Will Media Hucksters Wreck A Great American Story? They're Trying...
• · · In the meantime, one enterprising blogger has started a campaign to link the words "Cheerful Achievement" to Obama's biography. Sounds good. Obama Googlebombed; For the hard right, inauguration day was an occasion to keep bashing Obama, but serious conservatives are warming to him Conservative pundits don't quite know what to make of Barack ...
• · · · Obama is in the White House but mama still complaining about money because of this thing called the recession. Who Should Obama Look to for Advice?: Jimmy Carter ; Obama outlaws torture, rendition flights and secret jails run by CIA Hopes for the Obama Presidency
• · · · · it is hard to imagine what world would look like without the small and shrinking number of people who engage in painstaking, firsthand research in order to separate the truth from the body of supposed facts, and who keep the rest of us honest. What Will 2009 Bring for Journalism?; Most Americans don’t think of their government as an empire, but in fact the United States has been steadily expanding its control of overseas territories since the turn of the twentieth century. The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland; Our Jewish past is largely a tragedy, and the state of Israel is a continuation of that tragedy. Should Jews leave Israel?
• · · · · · Yes he can: Obama to keep BlackBerry; Everyone was blogging about Tuesday's inauguration -- even the people who were putting it on. A blogger's inauguration
Friday, January 02, 2009
Shaw PS - showing the way? Ian McPhee of Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) fame, noted last year My presentation today is intended to provide a broad perspective on public sector governance to act as a 'spring board' for the more specific aspects of governance that will be addressed in later sessions. I mainly refer to governance in the context of agencies (where the CEO generally reports to a Minister), rather than statutory authorities (where the CEO generally reports to a board) given the more limited information available relating to agency governance. Barbers and Bullies
We should expect the worst, but hope for the best New Media Dragons Bring Out Best Of Traditional Journalism
Arianna Huffington, creator of the popular blog, The Huffington Post, believes that both old and new media are joining forces to bring out the best in one another.
According to Ms. Huffington, bloggers are growing in stature in the world of traditional media, while journalists are increasingly moving into the world of blogging. "There's this real convergence, where basically you found that the best and most accurate rose to the top, whether it originated from Time magazine or from Nate Silver's 538.com, which did not exist before the election," she told Reuters, referring to the 538.com Web site that gathered and analyzed political polling data during the 2008 election."The convergence is going to keep growing, as we saw in this election period, two years and four years from now, I'm sure," she added.
• They have to share the power.; [Love and Consequences etc Famous Literary Hoaxes: Whatever you do, don't blame Oprah; It's the latest story that touched, and betrayed, the world Oprah Fooled Again ]
• · In media circles, there is a joke about facts that are too good to check. This week Oprah Winfrey and the New York publishing industry stumbled on yet another unverified account in the form of a Holocaust survivor who said his future wife had helped him stay alive while he was imprisoned as a child in a Nazi concentration camp by throwing apples over the fence to him. Nearly three years ago Ms. Winfrey was famously duped by James Frey, the author of “A Million Little Pieces,” his memoir of drug addiction and recovery in which he embellished several details; for example, he wrote that he had spent nearly three months in jail when in fact he had been held for a few hours. An outraged Ms. Winfrey rebuked Mr. Frey on television, telling him that he “betrayed millions of readers.” As Another Memoir Is Faked, Trust Suffers ; We run out and buy these books and then we get kicked in the teeth
• · Woman's struggles, cancer blog connect with others worldwide Local woman's blog has global impact; How do you make a go of blogging?
• · · These same media, however, have turned a blind eye to much more significant literary hoaxes. These include Alex Haley's counterfeit "Roots," Rigoberta Menchu's Nobel Prize-winning fraud, "I Rigoberta," Margaret Mead's fanciful "Coming of Age in Samoa," and leftist superstar Edward Said's repeated claims of being a Palestinian refugee. Memoir, meet the fact checker. Fact-checker, meet the memoir. ; Bigger frauds to fry than Rosenblat
• · · · I went straight to Google and typed in Fake Memoirs. Like a mushroom that sprouted up overnight, a stub on Herman Rosenblat had popped up at the top Wikipedia’s list of notorious authors of fake memoirs and journals Laurie Fendrich, a painter who lives and works in New York; How wonderful to have no scratches on your face. Yet difficult, too, I imagine. How pleasant it must be to be pleasant. How lovely to be lovely.
• · · · · The Bush administration's decision to drop planned anti-money laundering (AML) regulations aimed at the $2 trillion hedge fund industry has been denounced as "inexplicable, ill-timed and unwise" by Democrat Senator Carl Levin. Withdrawal of hedge fund AML rules "inexplicable"; ANDREW PEACOCK who was once married to a Rossiter girl. had a special friendship with Shirley MacLaine in 1978 but Australia's relations with the United States were far from intimate. Foreign affairs with a spicy tang; The holiday season can be a bit of a bummer for die-hard theater lovers Song Lyrics and Memoirs for All Seasons
• · · · · · Carrie Fisher won’t let you feel sorry for her, which is greatly to her credit in this age of needy, tell-all celebrity memoirs, but neither can she relax or stop joking. She writes: “If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable… The title of Carrie Fisher’s funny, sardonic little memoir is a bit misleading. Drinking seems to have been the least of her problems. Pills were more her thing, and for a while hallucinogens. As a teenager, she dropped so much acid that her parents called in the greatest LSD expert they knew: Cary Grant. Princess Leia’s Wit Tames the Dark Side: When two celebrities mate, something like me is the result ; In the end, one is never really sure what one is supposed to be taking from this book: whether one is reading the memoirs of someone who has shared a significant number of curious, thought provoking moments with the religious, or whether one is meant to be engaging in something like an 'edgy quest for meaning'. In any case, the experience may well leave one with their own sense of 'nothing'. Since Nietzsche wrote of the death of God, the question of valuing 'value' itself has been a central concern of western thinking
