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Will Work for Ad Dough?
The New York Observer's Politicker sums
up my thinking on the possible NYC cabbie walk-out thusly:
Nancy Scola thinks cab drivers may not want to strike if they're given a
cut of the advertising revenue generated from the GPS devices the city wants
to install in their cars.
Eh, not exactly. I'm more just curious as to why the question of ad money hasn't
become a part of the debate. And I'd merely suggest that ultimate control over
those dollars points to the contested and confusing nature of the labor relationship between
hacks and the city (and the Taxi & Limousine Commission and fleet-owners,
for that matter). But I'm certainly happy for the attention from the good folks
at the Observer...
(Photo by amg2000 via
Flickr and under a Creative Commons license.)
In NYC's Latest Transportation Fight, Who Benefits from Annoying Me?
 Some New York City cabbies are prepping to strike next week over the new Passenger
Information Monitors the city is requiring that they install in their rides.
The potential strike raises interesting questions about the nature of the labor
relationship between NYC taxi drivers and the city government, but I can't get
over the fact that we're all going to now be subject to endless "information
and entertainment" while cabbing it in the city from now on.
I've got a
post on the topic over at the Albany Project. Please check it out. And if
you're a New Yorker, I'd love to hear what you think of the plan.
Absinthe by Design
 Design has been a hobby of mine for a long while. In fact, there was a time in my life, pre-Capitol Hill, where I supported myself by whipping up website mock-ups for a variety of small clients. It was great work (except for the clients). My latest design obsession is book covers. There's a small neighborhood book shop in Park Slope that features an array of books in their front window that I'm pretty sure are picked on the basis of how awesome the covers look. I love to walk over to the shop and study them. I love the colors, the variety of styles, and the way that the designer is forced to work within the four bounded corners of the cover.
Anyway, my very good friend Lindsey (who recently surprised me by saying that she reads the blog so, um, hey Lindsey! You rock.) gave me a book on the cultural history of absinthe for my birthday yesterday. Since I'm not completely sure about the legality of that drink in the U.S., lettttt's just say that we have two very good friends, named Schmancy and Schmindsey, who may or may not be pursuing the importation and subsequent consumption of absinthe. I loved the book, and in particular loved the simple yet striking cover design, which isn't conveyed all that well here, but still looks pretty great.
Sheralane, Where Time Stands Still
There's one annecdotal piece of information I talk about a lot when he comes to New Orleans, and it has to do with a dog grooming place in New Orleans East. I honestly don't know what this particular place hit me so strongly. When I first went to post-storm New Orleans in October 2005, there was misery and horror all around. The place fairly stunk of death and destruction. And when I went back this past April, things were only some measure less horrible, but still fairly awful when you consider that this is a major American city in which we expect people to make their lives once again.
Anyho, Sheralane Dog Grooming just happened to stand on a road I just happened to drive drive in 2005, and I stopped to take a photograph of it. Here's how that looked then:
Boarded up, with some horrying marks on the door indicating that not only had a dog died there, but that it had been left in a crate for more than a month. Okay, so that was taken in October of 2005. When I went back to New Orleans in April of 2007, I made a beeline for Sherlane. Again, I don't know what it is exactly about this obscure dog grooming outfit that so capture my imagination, but I figured it was at least worth heading back to and capturing another picture.
So here we are, one more, at Sheralane, some 20 months after the storm, some 19 months after the picture above was taken:
Ain't much has changed, kids, not much at all. Still boarded up. Still grown over with weeds. Still vacant. It doesn't look to me like anyone has been in or out of the place in the intervening 20 months, so who knows what has become of the dog in the crate. (Though I can't imagine that the city would allow it to sit and rot for that long. Health services does seem to have made a strong effort at addressing the most serious health risks post-storm.)
Yeah, I know that this is just one dog grooming shop, but in my mind it stands as a proxy for what has become for much of New Orleans. Things stand still the way they were just after the storm hit. In the grand scheme of things, two years isn't an overly long time. But it's a ridiculously long time when it doesn't seem like much progress is being made at all.
Anyway, when I began to forget what it's like down in New Orleans today, I think of Sheralane. Maybe you will too now.
Home, Sweet New Orleans?
The good folks at the Huffington Post requested another piece on Hurricane Katrina, and who am I to say no to Arianna when she calls? Seriously, called me on the phone. Asked me herself. Didn't want to break her heart. Love that accent too much.
This post attempts to answer why hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians can't, or won't, return home again. I gently suggest it's because going back is so difficult as to be a bit crazy. Hope you'll give it a read. And with that, I'm off to eat my birthday dinner, somewhere in the East Village. It's a surprise...
On the Gulf Coast, It's Always August 29th
 I
have a
post by that title up on Huffington Post on this, the two year anniversary
of the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. I'm lucky
enough to have it featured on the home page of the site -- thanks HuffPo! I
went to New Orleans in October of 2005 and again in April of this year, and
while some homes have been gutted and some neighborhoods rebuilt and some lending
programs established in the intervening 20 months, so much of that city stands
frozen like it was just after the storm came through.
The post doesn't get into policy or politics, really, though those are the
root reasons why New Orleans is still stuck on August 29th, 2005. Jane
called it an "emotional" piece. I'm okay with that. It's meant only
as a reminder. Poetry is about the grief, politics is about the grievance, right?
I'm not saying that piece is poetry, but it's more or less about the unending
grief of the Gulf Coast.
(The photo is from a house I helped to gut on Caffin Street in the Lower Ninth,
working with ACORN. More photos from that trip here.)
A Place as Beautiful
It's hard to know what to do with a place as spectacularly beautiful as Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. Photographs don't capture the immense beauty of the place, but nonetheless I'd like you to take a look at them. So here, here are a handful of my favorites from the photographs from the ones I took on our 12 day adventure:
             
There's a dirty, gritty, wildness to a place like Glacier that pictures can't convey, I don't think. Still, it can be nice to look at, no?
(I'm currently pitching stories on some of the more substantive aspects of the trip, and so won't share too much here yet. But should no story run, I'll certainly fill you in on everything I found to be interesting about Glacier -- including, of course, the disappearance of the glaciers. But also fascinating, I thought, was how Glacier isn't exactly untrammeled wilderness, having been built as a tourist destination for the benefit of the Great Northern Railroad.)
How Do You Say "Wow" in Montanan?
Back from Glacier National Park, and man is that one amazing place. I'll have more to report, but if you're eager for a peek at my travels, wander over to the ginormous photo set that I've put up on Flickr. There you can see the tiny butt of the black bear that we came upon while hiking to Avalanche Lake, the mountain goats who grazed feet from us while we set up camp in Sperry, and the Columbian ground squirrel who stood at attention as we passed. More to come.
Glacier!
Well I'm off in about ten minutes to head to the airport for 12 days of backcountry
camping, car camping, and hiking in Montana's Glacier National Park. (As for yesterday's Coalition of Graduate Employees Conference yesterday in Amherst -- awesome, and I learned a lot about grad students' place in the labor movement. I'm going to be looking for a chance to write on what those guys are up to.) I've been
looking forward to this trip for several months now and everything I hear about
Glacier paints a picture of one of the more beautiful places in America. I should
get to see mountain goats and what's left of a few glaciers. I'll be back on
the 23rd. Until then!
(Photo by Keirn
via Flickr and under a Creative Commons license.)
On Herding Grad Students
I'm pleased to be playing a small role in the tomorrow's Coalition of Graduate Employees Conference at UMass Amherst. In particular, it's a chance for me to learn more about what motivates aspiring academics to form a union, which I don't know much about yet but absolutely want to understand -- as I think there are some lessons in that on how to sustain and grow labor more broadly. I'll be co-presenting on a session on new media (read "blogging") and labor, and will report back on what I manage to learn.
(Photo by roboppy under a Creative Commons license.)
In Praise of the Gay Debate
I sometimes worry I'm not critical enough. I tend to think most things in life are awesome. But I think I'm justified in praising last night's Democratic presidential candidate forum hosted by the Human Rights Campaign and LOGO. I have a post up on Huffington Post celebrating how the event "outted" the candidates' takes on gayness. As with anything else, some of it wasn't great. In particular, I thought same-sex was far too much of a focus of both the questions and answers. But as a chance to assess where Obama, Edwards, Clinton et al are coming from on LGBT stuff? I know more now on that score than I did yesterday afternoon, for sure.
A Real Tech President Would Implant a Tracking Chip in Your Kid
I've got a post by that name up at Tech President. Hillary Clinton got me very excited at Yearly Kos with her talk of electronic school records -- like electronic medical records, but less problematic. It's the sort of bold thinking that I think a truly visionary candidate should regularly be engaging in. I'm gonna give away the ending to my post:
With the caveat that I've been thinking through the policy implications of electronic school records for all of about a day and a half, my first read is that it's a clever use of technology that (a) is doable and (b) would actually make the lives of Americans demonstrably better than they were before.
But the point isn't that it's a good policy. It might, in final analysis, be a dumb idea. But the point is that it's bold thinking firmly rooted in an understanding of how technology can be a force for concrete, tangible good. And in my mind, if you're a presidential candidate today, I can't believe that yours will be a Tech Presidency if you don't start to demonstrate soon that you get the power of tech down to your bones. That's how it ends. But I hope you'll read the whole thing.
Gender Confusion
What does it say about me that I spent all of Ladies' Night at Yearly Kos hanging out with two guys? (Duncan and Adam Conner, the guy taking the photo.) I'd blame the conference's supposed lack of diversity, but that doesn't make much sense, considering as how this was a ladies' event.
Strategic Giving
Having just re-read the Atlantic profile of gay political strategist Tim Gill I mentioned last post, it really is fascinating. I re-recommend it. Gill's figured out that a contribution of a few thousand dollars means little to a presidential candidate, but in a state house race can mean the difference between winning and losing. It's a trick that was the genius behind Mark Warner's Map Changers contest, where we targeted intensely local races in the randomly selected states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Here's Gill:
You hope that the forces of darkness will be the ones distracted by the shiny bauble of the presidency.
Gill's point is that pro-gay (this is a hypothetical, mind you) Barack Obama would like your $500, pro-gay State Rep. Barry Smith needs your $500. And Smith might be running against the next Rick Santorum, who started out, after all, in the Pennsylvania state house.
Turns Out She is the Only One
 I just can't get past thinking how funny it is that Melissa Etheridge is the questioner for tonight's gay-themed presidential debate hosted by the Human Rights Campaign. I mean, really. Ellen, Rosie, and David Hyde Pierce were busy, and they couldn't figure out how to get the sexually ambiguous Bert and Ernie muppets to sit behind a desk?
On a more serious note, this debate is a chance for a wider slice of America to see what troubles some gay people about the Human Rights Campaign. I wrote this back in February on MyDD:
HRC, the biggest national gay group, is often hit with criticisms that it would rather go after low-hanging fruit, throw black-tie galas, and remain palatable to mainstream DC political establishment than, you know, agitate for the advancement of actual homosexuals.
The context there was a fantastic Atlantic article about Tim Gill, the Colorado man who is quietly making an end-run around the Washington-centric HRC model by matching gay donors with important political contests out in the states. It's good preparatory reading for tonight's debate.
Attempting to Set Up a Cron Job for Scheduled Postings
If you can see this, that's terrific, because it means I somehow managed to set up a cron job with Dreamhost so that I can use scheduled postings in Movable Type. Still, please ignore it. And have a great day.
Less Room to Fit What's Fit to Print
 The
New York Times has gone
and shrunk itself in an effort to cut costs. They claim that they've
lost about a tenth of the per-page news hole -- the amount of space to
be filled by news -- but will compensate by adding more pages. The paper's
now down about 1 1/2 inches to a foot across, a change in size that I
found almost immediately noticeable. But it's certainly a less drastic
change than, say, selling the family-owned paper to some Australian mogul.
And besides, a smaller paper's somewhat more manageable on the New York
City subway, so I like it.
Slowing Mr. Murdoch
 Among
the stipulations in the agreement that let Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
buy Dow Jones was that a five-person board would be established to protect
the Wall Street Journal newsroom from Murdoch's interference.
The sense I was getting from journalists who had experience with Murdoch
as that this was like putting up a baby gate to keep a 12 year-old out
of the kitchen -- it might slow him down, but not by much.
And when one of the five was announced to be Nicholas Negroponte, I thought
it was a strange choice. I only know Negroponte as the brains behind the
One Laptop Per Child project and the founder of the MIT Media Lab. Maybe
he has some secondary interest in journalism, I thought. As it turns out,
not only is Negroponte
a good friend of Murdoch's, OLPC recently got a $2.5 million grant
from News Corp. This is how we're going to restrain Murdoch?
Now, there's a problem (or really fantastic best-practice, depending
on how you look at it) in executive pay where a CEO Mr. A serves on the
compensation committee for CEO Mr. B, and then when the time comes CEO
Mr. A returns the favor. I set your pay, you set mine, and somehow some
way soon we're all making $20 million a year while the company's stock
tanks.
Yet even that arrangement -- between two equals, at least -- makes more
sense than putting Nicholas Negroponte in charge of restraining the journalisitc
ambitions of his friend and benefactor, no?
Was It the Bread, the Blogs, or the Roses?
 The AFL-CIO's Tula Connell blogged her reaction to the modest turnout to the Bread, Blogs, and Roses I took part in at Yearly Kos. I don't think I was quite as down about it as Tula might have been. If you're only going to pull in ten people, it was a great ten people. And the discussion on labor stereotypes and narrative-building was phenomenally constructive for me at least, and I heard from at least two other participants ( 20% of the crowd, actually) that they thought it was worthwhile and productive.
Look, a discussion on the somewhat squishy topic of what people think of labor and how to change was never going to be a big crowd pull at Yearly Kos, I don't think. We could have boosted the crowd by making it electoral focused, or having the SEIU's Andy Stern do it, or tying it to race or gender. Maybe, now that I think of it, we should have tied it more explicitly to class.
But instead, we had a completely real and lively give-and-take with tech-savvy people who actually work in labor. (Except for me, I was the person least experienced in labor in the whole room. But that's okay, cause I was there as a writer, not an activist.)
And besides, there were so many panels in the 1 o'clock slot on Friday that we were fighting for a sliver of attendees to start. I'm happy with how it went. I shared some and learned a great deal more. And having only ten people there just means that we're almost guaranteed to have a surge in attendance next time we do the workshop. And I hope we do do it again.
Ah, one more thing -- as much as I loved the name "Bread, Blogs, and Roses" and the way it references a long-standing labor narrative, the way the Yearly Kos schedule handout was designed, that part of the name is all that showed up. If that's all I knew of the panel, I probably would have skipped right over it myself.
Modest Makeover
This site might look a little bit funky over the next few days as I make some changes to the design and layout. I've been thinking lately that it needs more breathing room. Seemed stuffy the way it was. Appreciate your patience.
Or -- subscribe via RSS, and you never have to look at the thing!
American Knowledge
Yes, this is the most important thing going on in the world right at the moment.
Last night I was musing to Jane about the possibility of cooking vegetarian Swedish meatballs, and we quickly figured out that we had very different ideas about what a Swedish meatballs actually are. I thought that they were traditionally served in a sweet-and-sour sauce, while Jane held firm to the idea that they come in a brown gravy. Naturally, we hopped onto Wikipedia to settle the question. This is exactly the sort of thing that Wikipedia's there for, right?
But as it turns out, Swedish meatballs doesn't have a dedicated Wikipedia page. Type in "Swedish meatballs" in the Wikipedia search engine, and you're redirected to the generic meatballs page where there's an anemic and insufficient section on the Swedish variety. This, I thought, is clearly a gap in the world's knowledge that needs to be filled. By me. I added "create Wikipedia page on Swedish meatballs" to my to-do list.
But reading this morning about the gathering of Wikipedians that just took place in Taiwan gave me pause. A firm understanding of Swedish meatballs is, I think, critical for Americans. Swedish meatballs, in my mind, approach the level of totemic in the context of American cuisine of the 1970s and 80s. Someone visiting Wikipedia to get a firmer grasp on American culture would have a gap in their knowledge of kitschy American cooking. And one of the beautiful things about Wikipedia is, in my mind, is how quickly it connects you to the functional knowledge necessary to get through modern life.
But to someone living life as a Taiwanese, the Swedish meatball is probably no more important than the balled meat of any other land. Privileging the Swedish version would make no sense to him or her.
Have I found the limits of organizing the world's knowledge on a global scale?
Fireworks!
John Edwards just attempted to put Hillary Clinton on the spot by asking her to join him and Barack Obama in turning down contributions from "Washington lobbyists." No way, said Clinton, those lobbyists represent real people. And besides, no one would seriously believe that I'd be influenced by all that money. The crowd booed, but Clinton seemed to revel in it and puff up in her chair, saying that "I've been waiting for this" and that it added a dose of "reality" to her presence at blogosphere conference. (Clinton's warm reception at Yearly Kos is a contrast with the fact that she regularly polls in the single digits on Daily Kos.)
Obama seemed incredulous that Clinton would dare to say that lobbyist cash didn't affect her in the least. He asked her if she really thought corporations were giving to her campaign for the good of the people. She shrugged him off.
Half-baked prediction: this lobbyist cash issue will be the "meeting with dictators" question of this debate.
1600 Pennsylvania Blogger
The candidates were just asked if they'd hire an official White House blogger. All seven raised their hands, but John Edwards signaled that he had more to say:
I will hire an official White House blogger. And her name will be Elizabeth Edwards.
She's Just Not That Into Telecom Policy?
Why am I having heard to believe that a policy wonk as wonky as Hillary Clinton has no opinion on the 1996 Telecommunications Act? I'm at Clinton's breakout session at Yearly Kos, and she was just asked about what she thought about a set of Clinton-era policies: Defense of Marriage Act, welfare reform, Don't Act Don't Tell, NAFTA, and the Telecom Act.
She had a detailed and well-crafted response to the first four, and then completely punted on the last. Her answer on the bill that wrought a complete shift in the way the federal government handles media and communications in this country, the one signed into law by her husband?
"You'll have to ask Al Gore. He's an expert, I'm not." Last time I checked, Gore's not running. She really has no cogent thinking on legislation that significant, or is she dodging in front of this crowd for a reason? I don't get it.
Minimalism Run Amok
I admit that the clean and fairly beautiful design of these Trader Joe's herbal shampoo and conditioner is a large part of the reason I bought them, but it turns out that the simple design makes them less useful. The only way to tell them apart is to wipe the suds away from your eyes and attempt to actually read the words on the label. This is minimalism gone too far! The need at least to have some sort of color ring, like the one on the new Target pill bottles. Less attractive, maybe, but also far less annoying.
I Spy a Governor from Vermont
Been wondering where Howard Dean has been? I spotted him twice today, alive, well, and kicking mightily.
 
DOD FOIA 2.0
Wow, this is something else. Several days ago I submitted a Freedom
of Information Act request to the Defense Department for records on the
Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, for a story I'm writing for Alternet.
Today I got back a letter basically accepting the requesting, but asking
for more confirmation that I'm indeed working as a freelancer for Alternet.
I'm not listed as a contributing writer on the Alternet
website, the letter said (even though I kinda am, here,
but whatever -- it's only one story, so I'll cut 'em a break on that)
and so they'd like some proof that I'm indeed writing the piece for them
as a freelancer.
In order for certain (reduced) fees to be applied to the request, the
DOD has to accept Alternet as a valid news organization. In making the
judgment that it is, the letter says this:
In considering your request for representative of the news media status,
I have reviewed the Altnernet website, which states that Alternet is
an news magazine and online community that creates original journalism
and amplifies the best of dozens of other independent media sources.
I have also reviewed the information available on Wikipedi (sic) and
Alternet is described as...
So the obvious way to satisfy the Defense Department's request for confirmation
of my status, as I see it, is to go edit the Wikipedia
entry on Alternet to add myself as contributing writer. Heck, while
I'm at it, I think I might make myself Editor in Chief.
Bringing Bread, Blogs, and Roses to Yearly Kos
I was just plotting out my plan of attack for the Yearly Kos convention that starts Thursday in Chicago, and man are there some good panels and sessions. Here are a few of the scheduled events that I'm most eager to attend:
- The New York/New Jersey/Connecticut Regional Caucus hosted by Phillip Anderson and Juan Melli (Thursday at 3:30PM)
- The Next Progressive Foreign Policy with Steve Clemmons, Peter Beinart, and Ken Baer (Friday at 10:30AM)
- How to Put Emotion into the Often Emotionally Barren Language of the Left with Drew Westen (Friday at 1PM)
- Blogs and Journalism with Rob Levine, Cara DeGette, Ezra Klein, Abdi Aynte, Sidney Blumenthal (Friday at 4PM)
- Blogging While Female with Garance Franke-Ruta, Jessica Valenti, Gina Cooper, Amanda Marcotte (Saturday at 10:30AM)
Last Yearly Kos, which was the first annual one and held out in Las Vegas, I had just started a job with a (pre-)presidential campaign. My goal then was fairly straightforward -- to promote my candidate. This time around, I'm going as much more of an observer, with a particular focus on blogging the event for Air America. Where last year I was scrambling around to lay Mark Warner t-shirts on the back of every chair in the main hall, this year I'll be watching what goes on and trying to extract some content from the convention that I think my readers will enjoy. I'm looking forward to the challenge.
All that said, I will be actively participating in one event, and that's a workshop on Friday at 1PM organized by American Rights at Work called "Blogs, Bread, and Roses." I love the colorful title so much. There's too much that's boring and uncreative in progressive politics. I got pulled into the workshop by the AFL-CIO's Tula Connell, who I worked with in the past when I did some work on the Employee Free Choice Act, and I'll let her tell you about the workshop:
"Give Us Bread, Not Roses," long has been a clarion call for those of us in labor. The phrase is associated with the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Mass., that united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World. Led largely by women, the strike resulted in pay increases, time-and-a-quarter pay for overtime and a promise of no discrimination against strikers.
As the century unfolded, it became clear that woman and man can't live by bread alone. Or, as Emma Goldman famously said:
If I can't dance, I don't want a part of your revolution.
In the 21st century, we recognize that to the mix of bread and roses (and dancing), we must add blogs -- and everything blogging represents: Connecting with the netroots to build solidarity for our mutual fights against corporate greed and anti-humanitarian politicians. Getting out our message unfiltered by the biases and distortions of mainstream media. And, not the least -- having a good time doing so.
The workers' rights organization, American Rights at Work, is hosting the Bread, Blogs and Roses workshop, which we're billing as a frank discussion on unions and the fight for workers' rights and how this fight connects to the broader battles in which the netroots is engaged.
Long-time activist and blogger Nancy Scola, whom we sponsored earlier this year to blog about the Employee Free Choice Act campaign, will talk about her experiences at union organizing campaigns, including one at Resurrection Health Care in Chicago, where health care workers have sought for four years to form a union with AFSCME. (Management has viciously opposed the workers' efforts, and I've written about it in detail here.) Scola was fairly new to the world of workers' forming unions, and we agreed she would write about the issues involved however she saw them -- not how we in the union movment would like them portrayed. After spending several days talking with employees at Resurrection about their working conditions and the low pay and few benefits they receive for their often grueling jobs, Scola described on MyDD that it was impossible not to take sides on the issue of Employee Free Choice.
From where I'm standing, the union movement is a fairly remarkable human experiment. In America alone, millions of people have harnessed the collective strengths of their co-workers to give them all better lives. Amazing, really. But when we got into the human experiment this big, we had to have known that nothing is going to work out perfectly. Especially when we're dealing with the economic lives of millions of human animals, there's something "wrong" that can be pointed out with every step taken.
Scola will be joined in the workshop by a worker from Resurrection, and the dynamic director of American Rights at Work, Mary Beth Maxwell.
More simply put, the focus of the panel will be twofold; one, exposing some of the stereotypes that progressive bloggers hold about the labor movement, and two, discussing how those in the labor movement can do a better job in telling their stories. I think it should be a frank exchange and a good time, so if you happen to be out in Chicago I hope you'll attend.
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