by David Burn | Dec 19, 2005 | Media, Politics
Mike Wallace spoke to The Boston Globe earlier this month. Here’s some of what he said:
Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?
A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?
[via Kottke]
by David Burn | Dec 16, 2005 | Food & Beverage
Adelsheim is one of Oregon’s outstanding pinot producers. If you can locate their wine, buy it and toast to your good fortune.
Here’s the winery’s origin story:
On a beautiful June day in 1971, David Adelsheim and Ginny Adelsheim stood above an open field and were taken with the beauty of its orange and purple wildflowers.
Five hundred feet below, Oregon’s north Willamette Valley stretched out in a patchwork of orchards, pasture and native trees. The field, rich with clay-loam soil, had a gentle southern exposure and was sheltered by the Chehalem Mountains. The Adelsheims had dreamed of planting a vineyard in the area since returning from a summer in Europe, where they were inspired by the hand-made foods and wines they encountered.
In 1972, the Adelsheims began planting their original 15-acre vineyard at Quarter Mile Lane with Pinot noir, Chardonnnay, Pinot gris, and Riesling.
Relying on family and friends for assistance, they battled weeds, mildew, birds and deer — and the widely perceived futility of growing wine grapes in northern Oregon’s cooler climate.
Having enjoyed several bottles of Adelsheim Pinot Noir over the years, I can attest that the winemaker’s passion comes through loud and clear. It’s great stuff.
A note on the labels: Drawn by Ginny Adelsheim, the Oregon Series wines feature full-color drawings of family and friends who have worked in the original estate vineyard and winery at Quarter Mile Lane.
by David Burn | Dec 16, 2005 | Music
USA TODAY: The boom in live recordings, enjoying unprecedented vitality in the marketplace, is opening new revenue streams for artists while expanding the sonic smorgasbord for listeners.
Today, consumers can pick up freshly pressed CDs of a concert while leaving the venue or point and click to the experience without leaving their driveways.
“The people have spoken, and they want a more intimate relationship with their favorite artists,” says Stephen Prendergast, general manager of Instant Live, which provides professionally recorded and packaged concert CDs immediately (usually within six minutes after the encore) or by mail, as well as digital downloads.
Modeled after the proven but illegal underground network of bootleggers, the company started in 2003, gained traction in 2004 and saw its business explode this year.
“We’re expanding with people that don’t fit the classic established rock act, like The Dears and The Decemberists,” he says. “We did Charlie Daniels and Lorrie Morgan to test the country market. We’re finding that when people want something, they want it now.”
The standard Instant Live CD is $25, and up to 20% of the house might bite, depending on fan-base fervor. The Black Crowes, The Pixies, Jewel, Kiss, Bauhaus and Hall & Oates have shown brisk sales.
As technology allows greater efficiency, Prendergast envisions on-site copying of shows onto fans’ digital devices, personalizing CD keepsakes with a photo and recording shows remotely.
by David Burn | Dec 15, 2005 | Media
Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols explore the values of a partisan press in In These Times:
It comes as a surprise to many to learn that the notion of objectivity or simply professional journalism is a relatively recent development in the United States. In the first one hundred-plus years of the republic, journalism tended to be highly opinionated and partisan. Indeed, the first few generations of U.S. journalists–the years from Madison and Jefferson to Jackson and Lincoln–were diametrically opposed to what many Americans think is intended by the First Amendment: a commitment to neutral, values-free news reporting.
The key to having partisan journalism promote democratic values, rather than repress them, is to have a wide range of partisan viewpoints available, and for it to be feasible to launch a new partisan newspaper or magazine if one is dissatisfied with the existing range of options. One way to view the freedom of the press clause in the First Amendment is to see that it protects the right of citizens to launch their own publications, even if they are opposed to the political views of those holding political power at the time. That radical idea was mainstream thinking at the time of the country’s founding.
Over the course of the nineteenth century, as publishing became an increasingly lucrative sector, market competition generated innumerable new newspapers, with publishers seeking profit as much or more than political influence. This was a classic competitive market, where new entrepreneurs could enter the field and launch a newspaper with relative ease if they were dissatisfied with the existing publications. Major cities like New York or Chicago or St. Louis tended to have well over a dozen daily newspapers at any given time, reflecting a fairly broad range of political viewpoints. The system was far from perfect, yet it worked.
On the other hand, as newspapering became big business, markets became much less competitive. By the early twentieth century, there were fewer and fewer newspapers in any given community, and in many towns there remained only one or two competing dailies. Barriers to entry emerged that made it virtually impossible to launch a new newspaper in a community, even if the existing papers were highly profitable. In short, newspaper publishing became monopolistic, far more so than most other major industries.
This led to a political crisis for journalism. It was one thing for newspapers to be stridently partisan when there were numerous competing voices and when it was not impossible to launch a new newspaper if the existing range was unsatisfactory. It was altogether different when there were only one or two newspapers and it was impossible to start a new one.
Professional journalism was the solution to the crisis. It was the revolutionary idea that the owner and editor of a newspaper would be split, and a “Chinese Wall” put between them. News would no longer be shaped to suit the partisan interests of press owners, but rather would be determined by trained nonpartisan professionals, using judgment and skills honed in journalism schools. There were no such schools in 1900; by the end of World War I nearly every major journalism school in the nation had been established, often at the behest of newspaper owners. Professionalism meant that the news would appear the same whether the paper was owned by a Republican or a Democrat.
Now that we’re in the age of citizen media, we’ve returned to the multiplicity of voices ideal. Except we’re on a global stage today, and there aren’t a dozen “papers” in a given market, there are thousands of “voices” competing to be heard. The more eloquent and trustworthy these voices become, the more readership they will garner.
by David Burn | Dec 15, 2005 | The Environment
At opus:creative in Portland, Oregon, 13 of their 31 employees ride their bikes to work.
Outside of opus:creative, bike commuter numbers are exploding throughout Portland, as profiled recently in an Associated Press article that credited cycling — and the City of Portland’s emphasis on livable urban design that encourages such activities — for helping keep Oregon’s adult obesity rate stagnant, while other U.S. states continue to climb steadily. The obesity statistics come from a study conducted by an organization called Trust for America’s Health; Michael Earls, co-author of the study, describes the relationship between urban design and fitness: “If a city or town is built in such a way that it forces residents to drive long distances instead of walking or cycling, then physical activity becomes something that has to be planned rather than an activity which can be woven into the fabric of everyday life.”
Bike Portland is a great bicycling blog and it lists several other local bicycling blogs, all of which points to just how pervasive the riding ethos is in Puddletown.
And for those who must drive, Darrell Plant says there is biodiesel for sale at Jay’s Garage, on the corner of SE 7th Ave. and Morrison St.
by David Burn | Dec 14, 2005 | Art
National Geographic: Archaeologists revealed the final section of the earliest known Maya mural ever found, saying that the find upends everything they thought they knew about the origins of Maya art, writing, and rule.
The painting was the last wall of a room-size mural to be excavated. The site was discovered in 2001 at the ancient Maya city of San Bartolo in the lowlands of northeastern Guatemala.
The mural was painted by skilled artisans and reads like a Maya book, telling the story of creation, the mythology of kingship, and the divine right of a king, according to William Saturno, the University of New Hampshire archaeologist who leads the San Bartolo excavation project.
The painted wall dates to 100 B.C., proving that these stories of creation and kings–and the use of elaborate art and writing to tell them–were well established more than 2,000 years ago ago, centuries earlier than previously believed.
[via Boing Boing]
by David Burn | Dec 13, 2005 | Media
Editor and Publisher has a telling piece on the pointless divisions between old guard White House reporters for the Washinton Post and new school WP bloggers.
A debate is raging at The Washington Post, pitting the newspaper’s traditional print staff (and newly appointed ombudsman) against a representative of a new generation of journalists who work for the company’s Web site.
Newly appointed Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell kicked off the debate Sunday in a column titled “The Two Washington Posts.” In it, Howell looked to distinguish between the Washington Post’s print newspaper, with its weekday circulation of 671,322, and washingtonpost.com, with its 8 million unique visitors a month. In the process, Howell took particular aim at washingtonpost.com’s popular “White House Briefing” columnist Dan Froomkin, who tracks the key stories on the Bush administration and links to them, often adding pointed commentary and context.
“Political reporters at The Post don’t like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin’s ‘White House Briefing,’ which is highly opinionated and liberal,” Howell declared flatly. “They’re afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.”
Before ending her column with a recommendation that “the Web site should remove the ‘White House Briefing’ label from Froomkin’s column,” Howell quoted John Harris, a national political editor at the print Post, who complained that the title of Froomkin’s column “invites confusion” and “dilutes our only asset — our credibility” as objective news reporters.
From Dan Froomkin’s own fingers:
Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.
There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny.
While it’s easy to understand the need to drag the old guard forward inch by inch, what’s odd about this development is the fact that The Post is light years ahead of most newspapers when it comes to adapting their product to the tastes and needs of today’s news consumer.
In related news, USA TODAY tore down the walls between its print newsroom and its online newsroom.
by David Burn | Dec 11, 2005 | Music
Americana Roots has an interesting piece on Robert Earl Keen, written by Don Henry Ford Jr, cowboy, writer, horseman, seeker of things spiritual and social activist.
I’ve avoided writing about Mr. Robert Earl Keen for one reason. Doing justice to the man is a daunting task. Today, he’s reached iconic status here in Texas. So much so that the Governor named a day in his honor.
REK has a way of championing causes without offending, a rare ability in this world. He does this with parables. Instead of saying, you suck, he paints a picture of something that so obviously sucks there’s no denying the fact, kind of like Jesus was known to do.
Robert Earl Keen does what he does with a very limited voice. The man can barely sing. Which is quite amazing when you consider how good his songs sound. There are others out there now that emulate the man and do a good job. Adam Carroll comes to mind. But Robert Earl is the pioneer. When he began doing what he did, there was no one else out there quite like him.
by David Burn | Dec 10, 2005 | Literature
Sam Sacks writing in New York Press laments the state of American fiction today.
I was reminded of Narayan’s machine recently while reading the Best New American Voices 2006, an anthology edited by Jane Smiley. The book gives such a desultory vision of the future of American letters that one can only hope its title is wrong. Without ignoring the occasional flashes of verve, the stories included are so monotonous that they seem to have been written by a single person of middling talent. All but one of them are written in the first person; a similar percentage hinge upon the narrator’s difficulties with dysfunctional or deceased members of his or her family, or with ex-lovers. The tone is always confessional and saturated with self-pity. The plot and action are always negligible: one story takes place on a road trip to a presidential birthplace, another while moving apartments, another at a wedding, another while opening presents in front of the Christmas tree. None of this much matters anyway, because the things the characters do are always mundane and largely incidental to their psychological conflicts. From time to time a structural innovation appears to offer an interesting novelty, but under the packaging the same old formula is always to be found.
Even the style of writing displays a numbing verisimilitude. The first-person voice is always a lazily generalized vernacular, jazzed up at significant moments with consciously poetic frills in the exposition.
It should be no surprise that every one of the writers in this anthology have one more thing in common: They have attended writers’ workshops, either in graduate programs or in similarly organized writing conferences.
Writing workshops, for their ubiquity, are currently the most significant phenomenon influencing American literature.
The best advice I ever received regarding the writer’s path, is, “If you want to write, write.” That is, don’t go to school. Write.
[via One Pot Meal]
by David Burn | Dec 9, 2005 | Digital culture
Ethan Zuckerman on Ben Hammersley’s talk at Les Blogs:
Ben Hammersley has the afternoon keynote which is, predictably, both thought provoking and a standup comedy routine. It’s titled “Eight Big Ideas of the 21st Century (And Why Blogging Isn’t One of Them)”.
I’ll skip to the punch line and mention that blogging isn’t one of the big ideas, but the conjunction of all the eight ideas. (These eight big ideas are the focus of Ben’s new book.) They are as follows:
information wants to be free
zero distance
mass amateurization
more is much more
true names
viral behavior
everything is personal
ubiquitous computing
Ben believes that blogging, and other forms of content creation, signal the beginning of a period of huge change that, in retrospect, will be seen as “the first days of the Renaissance…you were the flatmate of Leonardo DaVinci.” Driving the analogy further, he argues that 1991 – when Tim Berners-Lee brought the web to life – may prove to be a more revolutionary year than 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.
It’s a funny, hopeful, incredibly optimistic talk and Ben closes by trying to get us to take some responsibility for ensuring that the good guys win over the bad guys. I’m less convinced than he that there’s nowhere to go but up, but hopeful that the ability for people to speak to a global audience through these technologies really does help change society for the better.
Rebecca MacKinnon, a “recovering TV reporter-turned-blogger,” ain’t buyin’ it.
Ben Hammersley gave a very provocative talk about the future. (Provocative not only because he was wearing a kilt!) He believes “We are on the tipping point of the next step in the evolution of human society.”
I must admit, I don’t believe that technology – or anything else for that matter – is going to enable human beings to transcend our fundamentally flawed human nature. I tend to feel that we’re better off if we plan for the future based on the assumption that human capacity for evil and stupidity will remain pretty much constant, and then make sure to build in the requisite institutions and systems to protect ourselves from the dark side of our own nature.
