Search Episodes (Your American Dream)

Breakingviews: Analyzing the American Dream

Added 02/09/12
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Breakingviews: Analyzing the American Dream

Added 02/09/12
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Forza Motorsport 4 - DLC: "American Le Mans Series Pack" Trailer

Added 02/01/12
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Games Hit The Museum and Katy Perry...Game Maker? - Press Paus...

Added 01/20/12
10 Views

Games Hit The Museum and Katy Perry...Game Maker? - Press Pause Daily

[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 04:00:00 01/20/12
Games prepare to hit the museum and Katy Perry, Game Maker? SHOW NOTES: Story 1: There has been a big fight over the last few years over whether games can be considered art. In my opinion, that fight has now been rendered mooooooot! The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. is hosting an exhibit called The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect we are bound to see a lot of classic and unique video-game artists. The exhibit will launch on March 16th, this exhibit will be three days of panel discussions with game industry veterans such as founder Nolan Bushnell of Atari. The exhibit is featuring retrospectives and movie showings such as Tron, and The King of Kong. In the announcement, guest curator Chris Melissinos stated that “Video games are increasingly expressive and a prevalent medium within modern society...In the 40 years since the introduction of the first home video game, the field has attracted exceptional artistic talent.” I’m curious to know who the critics are claiming this not to be art? Picasso and Mattisse snobs with their noses in the air. Come and face reality suckers! (arrow to the knee meme?) The exhibit will run until September 30th, after which it will head out on the road. http://www.shacknews.com/article/72024/smithsonian-preparing-art-of-video-games-opening Stor y 2: Now when I say Katy Perry what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Talented singer? Interesting videos? Russell Brand? How about video game maker? No?...yeah me either. Well it looks like Ms. Perry is getting into the game business with a recent report that she has entered into a partnership with Electronic Arts to create multiple games in the company’s popular Sims franchise. The first collaboration will be a collector’s edition of the upcoming Sims 3 expansion called Showtime, which will include many Katy Perry themed items for your Sim, including clothing, hair, a guitar, and stage props. Katy will also star in new advertising for the series, and is pretty psyched to be involved with the game. She said “I always like to think of myself as a cartoon, and now I'm a Sim!" You know, I am actually at a loss for words. Well anyway, if you are interested in a little more pop in your Sims, the expansion will release sometime in March. http://www.shacknews.com/article/72028/katy-perry-items-to-star-in-multiple-sims-games That will do it for your daily dose of Press Pause. You can always find all our episodes over at presspause.mevio.com . You can also check them out over at our Youtube channel: youtube.com/presspausemevio .

Not Your Father’s Golden Years

Added 01/07/12
4 Views

A Wimpy Start to 2012

Added 01/03/12
10 Views

A Wimpy Start to 2012

Added 01/03/12
8 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
1 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
5 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming

Added 12/19/11
5 Views

Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 12/19/11
Former President Havel addresses a European cultural congress on the economics of culture On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes. The President of Czechoslovakia wasn't reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer's sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state. Václav Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. "We're not rock musicians," Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. "We're electronic social workers." The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" ("Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind .") We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost. Today we're told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel's words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred." Think of that as the Velvet Revolution's "one demand." Portrait of the President as a Young Freak As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence. The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel's movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves "freaks" to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan. And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy's drum circles seem like a children's choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans. Words Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ... Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power: > I ... live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies ... a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions. When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television. Havel had been burned by language, too: > The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays ... true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps. And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates: > The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable. Control In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There's more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today: > The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens. Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure. "Everyone has something to lose," observed Havel. Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own: > The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an 'outward' direction, the more one's energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, 'inwards.'" People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives. Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'" Ambition Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák: > If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism. It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record. From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does: > Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power. Technocracy It's a historical irony that those who claim they'll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by "technocrats' who'll govern without messy "ideologies." That's a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the "process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation." Washington's technocratic "bipartisans" dream of a world where, in Havel's words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the 'innocent' tool of an 'innocent' anonymous power ... legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway: > States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success. Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature: > (It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend ... the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation. "The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is," Havel wrote, "deeply pessimistic." Responsibility "I favor 'antipolitical politics,'" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them." > I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans. None of us--as an individual--can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so. Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries: > Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated ... Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia. Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that's all the world remembered. Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That's the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere. "Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?" he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power. At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it's our turn.

Now Available on Rock Band: THESE HEARTS, THE BUNNY THE BEAR, ...

Added 12/02/11
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Now Available on Rock Band: THESE HEARTS, THE BUNNY THE BEAR, ...

Added 12/02/11
0 Views

UC Berkeley Police Defend Response to 'Occupy Cal' Protests

Added 11/30/11
3 Views

UC Berkeley Police Defend Response to 'Occupy Cal' Protests

[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:46 11/30/11
The video above was the scene as police in riot gear viciously beat peaceful student activists with their batons in front of Sproul Hall on the University of California at Berkeley campus Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, in Berkeley, CA. What follows here is an open letter from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association, addressed to the campus community and to the UC Board of Regents in response to the events of Nov. 9 and the criticism their actions that day elicited. > An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community. The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association, representing approximately 64 campus police officers, understands your frustration over massive tuition hikes and budget cuts, and we fully support your right to peacefully protest to bring about change. It was not our decision to engage campus protesters on November 9th. We are now faced with “managing” the results of years of poor budget planning. Please know we are not your enemy. A video clip gone viral does not depict the full story or the facts leading up to an actual incident. Multiple dispersal requests were given in the days and hours before the tent removal operation. Not caught on most videos were scenes of protesters hitting, pushing, grabbing officers’ batons, fighting back with backpacks and skateboards. The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association supports a full investigation of the events that took place on November 9th, as well as a full review of University policing policies. That being said, we do not abrogate responsibility for the events on November 9th. UC Berkeley police officers want to better serve students and faculty members and we welcome ideas for how we can have a better discourse to avoid future confrontations. We are open to all suggestions on ways we can improve our ability to better protect and serve the UC Berkeley community. As your campus police, we also have safety concerns that we ask you to consider. Society has changed significantly since 1964 when peaceful UC Berkeley student protesters organized a 10-hour sit-in in Sproul Hall and 10,000 students held a police car at bay – spawning change and the birth of our nation’s Free Speech Movement. However proud we can all be of UC Berkeley’s contribution to free speech in America, no one can deny this: Our society in 2011 has become an extremely more violent place to live and to protect. No one understands the effects of this violence more than those of us in law enforcement. Disgruntled citizens in this day and age express their frustrations in far more violent ways – with knives, with guns and sometimes by killing innocent bystanders. Peaceful protests can, in an instant, turn into violent rioting, ending in destruction of property or worse – the loss of lives. Police officers and innocent citizens everywhere are being injured, and in some instances, killed. In the back of every police officer’s mind is this: How can I control this incident so it does not escalate into a seriously violent, potentially life-threatening event for all involved? > While students were calling the protest “non-violent,” the events on November 9th were anything but nonviolent. In previous student Occupy protests, protesters hit police officers with chairs, bricks, spitting, and using homemade plywood shields as weapons – with documented injuries to officers. At a moment’s notice, the November 9th protest at UC Berkeley could have turned even more violent than it did, much like the Occupy protests in neighboring Oakland. Please understand that by no means are we interested in making excuses. We are only hoping that you will understand and consider the frustrations we experience daily as public safety officers sworn to uphold the law. It is our job to keep protests from escalating into violent events where lives could be endangered. We sincerely ask for your help in doing this. Like you, we have been victims to budget cuts that affect our children and our families in real ways. We, too, hold on to the dream of being able to afford to send our children and grandchildren to a four-year university. Like you, we understand and fully support the need for change and a redirection of priorities. To students and faculty: As 10,000 students surrounded a police car on campus in 1964, protesters passed the hat to help pay for repairs to the police car as a show of respect. Please peacefully respect the rules we are required to enforce – for all our safety and protection. Please respect the requests of our officers as we try to do our jobs. To the University Administration and Regents: Please don’t ask us to enforce your policies then refuse to stand by us when we do. Your students, your faculty and your police – we need you to provide real leadership. We openly and honestly ask the UC Berkeley community for the opportunity to move forward together, peacefully and without further incident – in better understanding of one another. Thank you for listening. In short, the brutal beating suffered by the UC Berkeley students weren't the fault of the officers involved because the protesters could have used lethal force . One huge problem here is the lack of any evidence to back up the claims of the UC Davis police that the students were on the verge of using lethal force. The students, however, have plenty of video footage and photographs of the officers beating the crap out of them with batons - you know - evidence .

Updated: The Shocking Truth About Naomi Wolf's Factless Assert...

Added 11/26/11
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Updated: The Shocking Truth About Naomi Wolf's Factless Assertions

[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 17:30:07 11/26/11
In an article for The Guardian , Naomi Wolf wrote this: > In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors , the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens. This follows the ongoing meme that DHS has coordinated the Occupy crackdowns on a national level; that they are orchestrating the violence behind the clearing of Zuccotti Park and others. Wolf carries this to her conclusion: > So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not. It's a factless, incendiary assertion dripping in hyperbole, grounded in speculation that's been going on for a couple of weeks now. It began with a tweet. A tweet from Michael Moore speculating that the coordination seemed like something being coordinated by DHS and sanctioned, nay, possibly even requested, by the Obama administration. Here are the two links Wolf provides as evidence: One to Wonkette ; the other to Washingtonsblog.com . Both articles point back to this absurd article on the Examiner.com site (a very, very right-wing Phil Anschutz, write-out-of-your-butt-with-no-evidence kind of site). Washingtons Blog goes one step further, updating with this: > (And for those who are understandably doubtful about Examiner.com as a news source, here’s an AP story from a couple hours ago that verifies everything except the specific mention of DHS coordination. ) Got that? The headlines on both of these stories (Wonkette and Washingtons Blog) were splayed across the sites in very large heading fonts: “Homeland Security Coordinated….” and yet the AP confirms everything BUT DHS coordination. Still, that didn’t stop Wolf from ignoring the AP story entirely and writing a piece for the Guardian that included links to bolster her argument that are as factless as her hyperbole, and stem from right-wing sites with anonymous sources. No one has a source, no one has any evidence, and the originating story which Michael Moore and now Naomi Wolf breathlessly spread quotes an anonymous source with the promise of still more to come in the future, from a "reporter" for Examiner.com who no one seems to know . Miraculously, this "reporter" got a tip from DHS that no national reporter received, and even though Mr. Ellis walks back his original accusation, he promises updates in the future. Well, it’s the future. It’s two weeks later and crickets from Mr. Ellis. Mission accomplished, though. Ask people who are paying attention to the OWS movement and they’ll swear up and down that yes, it was coordinated by DHS because MICHAEL MOORE and now NAOMI WOLF say so. Truth: We don’t know. It isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility for mayors to consult with DHS. After all, that’s what they’re there for. To help local and state governments deal with threats, real, rumored or perceived. At best, one can conclude that maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t coordinate, and if they did coordinate, no one knows to what extent they did or whether there was any sort of "blessing" and/or mandate from DHS to what they ultimately chose to do. The best anyone can say is "maybe". But if Wolf were not trying to stoke an international narrative she has chosen, she would have had a look at Portland, where there is some evidence that DHS was consulted because the occupiers were adjacent to federal land. > There is another line of thinking out there that runs directly counter to the federal-coordination theory: Ruiz wouldn’t comment on this, but one well-placed city source said, in fact, that the feds were mostly inclined to leave Schrunk Plaza open. It was city officials who cajoled them into getting on board—lest they watch most of Occupy’s camp merely move several hundred feet south onto federal land. Which would have been awkward for the city. But also interesting. Should you accept as fact the idea that the feds were reluctant and the city pushed them along? NO. Why? Because it’s attributed to an anonymous source with nothing to back it up, which makes this theory as worthy as the DHS coordination theory, or just speculation with no facts behind it. Josh Holland at AlterNet also notes: > Ironically, the occupation that arguably maintains the best relationship with local officials is Occupy DC, and the Washington, DC government is directly overseen by Congress. Look, if DHS somehow instructed these cities to dress up their cops in riot gear, pepper spray kneeling protesters, use billy clubs to keep them from crossing imaginary borders, and ultimately throw the lot of them out, then yes, by all means shake your fist. But it's irresponsible for Wolf to publish such incendiary accusations -- accusations of real, physical civil war -- in an international publication, to cite magical articles with unsourced accusations and call it fact. Some might actually call it a lie. Wolf's hyperbole does harm to the OWS movement and those honest people out there conducting themselves peacefully and with clear intent, because she intentionally tried to stir the fires of anger and discontent and anti-government sentiment on an international level. She should have to either retract or clarify her accusations. Update Joshua Holland has written his own excellent response to Wolf's specific accusations. > When you don’t “connect” wholly disparate “dots,” what you get is far less dramatic. Mayors in a handful of cities, responding to local political pressures, decided to break up their local occupations — decisions that were announced to the press well in advance — and were advised as to how best to do so. One doesn’t have to like that fact to recognize that it’s hardly shocking, and anything but a sinister assault on local communities’ autonomy. Also, regarding PERF's* involvement, an interview with the director in The Boston Phoenix : > But what is PERF? And what role, if any, did it play in the police actions? According to PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler, not the one he had hoped. His organization is more concerned with improving police practices and policies, he said. He cited a report PERF published in June, which gives advice that runs exactly counter to how Occupy has been handled in most cities — emphasizing communication, respect for the First Amendment, and avoidance of violent methods at nearly all cost. "Over the years, we've taken on racially biased policing, violent crime, the Gates-Crowley thing in Cambridge," he said. "It's not always pretty, and it's not easy, but I think we owe it to the public to identify best practices." * PERF is the Police Executives' Research Forum, a group who views themselves as a progressive organization dedicated to reducing police brutality and establishing best practices for police officers in various situations. Until recently, they've been a big target of the right wing for their support of gun control laws.

Updated: The Shocking Truth About Naomi Wolf's Factless Assert...

Added 11/26/11
5 Views

Updated: The Shocking Truth About Naomi Wolf's Factless Assertions

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 17:30:07 11/26/11
In an article for The Guardian , Naomi Wolf wrote this: > In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors , the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens. This follows the ongoing meme that DHS has coordinated the Occupy crackdowns on a national level; that they are orchestrating the violence behind the clearing of Zuccotti Park and others. Wolf carries this to her conclusion: > So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not. It's a factless, incendiary assertion dripping in hyperbole, grounded in speculation that's been going on for a couple of weeks now. It began with a tweet. A tweet from Michael Moore speculating that the coordination seemed like something being coordinated by DHS and sanctioned, nay, possibly even requested, by the Obama administration. Here are the two links Wolf provides as evidence: One to Wonkette ; the other to Washingtonsblog.com . Both articles point back to this absurd article on the Examiner.com site (a very, very right-wing Phil Anschutz, write-out-of-your-butt-with-no-evidence kind of site). Washingtons Blog goes one step further, updating with this: > (And for those who are understandably doubtful about Examiner.com as a news source, here’s an AP story from a couple hours ago that verifies everything except the specific mention of DHS coordination. ) Got that? The headlines on both of these stories (Wonkette and Washingtons Blog) were splayed across the sites in very large heading fonts: “Homeland Security Coordinated….” and yet the AP confirms everything BUT DHS coordination. Still, that didn’t stop Wolf from ignoring the AP story entirely and writing a piece for the Guardian that included links to bolster her argument that are as factless as her hyperbole, and stem from right-wing sites with anonymous sources. No one has a source, no one has any evidence, and the originating story which Michael Moore and now Naomi Wolf breathlessly spread quotes an anonymous source with the promise of still more to come in the future, from a "reporter" for Examiner.com who no one seems to know . Miraculously, this "reporter" got a tip from DHS that no national reporter received, and even though Mr. Ellis walks back his original accusation, he promises updates in the future. Well, it’s the future. It’s two weeks later and crickets from Mr. Ellis. Mission accomplished, though. Ask people who are paying attention to the OWS movement and they’ll swear up and down that yes, it was coordinated by DHS because MICHAEL MOORE and now NAOMI WOLF say so. Truth: We don’t know. It isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility for mayors to consult with DHS. After all, that’s what they’re there for. To help local and state governments deal with threats, real, rumored or perceived. At best, one can conclude that maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t coordinate, and if they did coordinate, no one knows to what extent they did or whether there was any sort of "blessing" and/or mandate from DHS to what they ultimately chose to do. The best anyone can say is "maybe". But if Wolf were not trying to stoke an international narrative she has chosen, she would have had a look at Portland, where there is some evidence that DHS was consulted because the occupiers were adjacent to federal land. > There is another line of thinking out there that runs directly counter to the federal-coordination theory: Ruiz wouldn’t comment on this, but one well-placed city source said, in fact, that the feds were mostly inclined to leave Schrunk Plaza open. It was city officials who cajoled them into getting on board—lest they watch most of Occupy’s camp merely move several hundred feet south onto federal land. Which would have been awkward for the city. But also interesting. Should you accept as fact the idea that the feds were reluctant and the city pushed them along? NO. Why? Because it’s attributed to an anonymous source with nothing to back it up, which makes this theory as worthy as the DHS coordination theory, or just speculation with no facts behind it. Josh Holland at AlterNet also notes: > Ironically, the occupation that arguably maintains the best relationship with local officials is Occupy DC, and the Washington, DC government is directly overseen by Congress. Look, if DHS somehow instructed these cities to dress up their cops in riot gear, pepper spray kneeling protesters, use billy clubs to keep them from crossing imaginary borders, and ultimately throw the lot of them out, then yes, by all means shake your fist. But it's irresponsible for Wolf to publish such incendiary accusations -- accusations of real, physical civil war -- in an international publication, to cite magical articles with unsourced accusations and call it fact. Some might actually call it a lie. Wolf's hyperbole does harm to the OWS movement and those honest people out there conducting themselves peacefully and with clear intent, because she intentionally tried to stir the fires of anger and discontent and anti-government sentiment on an international level. She should have to either retract or clarify her accusations. Update Joshua Holland has written his own excellent response to Wolf's specific accusations. > When you don’t “connect” wholly disparate “dots,” what you get is far less dramatic. Mayors in a handful of cities, responding to local political pressures, decided to break up their local occupations — decisions that were announced to the press well in advance — and were advised as to how best to do so. One doesn’t have to like that fact to recognize that it’s hardly shocking, and anything but a sinister assault on local communities’ autonomy. Also, regarding PERF's* involvement, an interview with the director in The Boston Phoenix : > But what is PERF? And what role, if any, did it play in the police actions? According to PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler, not the one he had hoped. His organization is more concerned with improving police practices and policies, he said. He cited a report PERF published in June, which gives advice that runs exactly counter to how Occupy has been handled in most cities — emphasizing communication, respect for the First Amendment, and avoidance of violent methods at nearly all cost. "Over the years, we've taken on racially biased policing, violent crime, the Gates-Crowley thing in Cambridge," he said. "It's not always pretty, and it's not easy, but I think we owe it to the public to identify best practices." * PERF is the Police Executives' Research Forum, a group who views themselves as a progressive organization dedicated to reducing police brutality and establishing best practices for police officers in various situations. Until recently, they've been a big target of the right wing for their support of gun control laws.

Marketing Update:Social Objects & Marketing with @GapingVoid

Added 11/11/11
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Marketing Update:Social Objects & Marketing with @GapingVoid

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:48:12 11/11/11
Episode #174 - November 11th, 2011 Intro How to interact on Twtter: Include #HubSpotTV in your tweet! On the show today is Mike Volpe (@mvolpe), Karen Rubin (@KarenRubin) and special guest Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) As always, all the old episodes are in iTunes. If you like the show, please leave a 5-star review! Anyone is welcome to come by the show to watch as part of the live studio audience - 4pm Friday Special Guest: Hugh MacLeod Your Twitter bio says you are a "Cartoonist, bestselling author and marketing apostate." I had to go look up apostate and it's defined as "a person who abandons his religion, party, or cause." So have you abandoned marketing? Tell us about social objects? what is a social object and how do they relate to social networks? How should marketers think about social objects? Marketing Automation: Doing It Right http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-automation-examples/bid/28757/Great-Marketing-Automation-Ontolo-s-New-Version-Announcement I've been doing a poor job of giving you what you really, truly need as a link builder. For some reason, I thought I knew what you wanted better than you did. Because of that, we've built some of the most complex link building tools in the industry. In this letter (reprinted in part uncensored with their permission), the CEO of Ontolo, Ben Wills, apologizes for having led their product in a bad direction over their last version and explains the thought process and decisions that spurred the newest version of their product, which they are releasing next week. Ben ends the letter with a note that he will be sending a follow-up email with more product specific information on Friday morning to follow up, and thanks the community for being involved. The email never directly asks for anything except the reader's forgiveness for being subjected to sub-par software. They used this letter in other channels besides email, by publishing it on their blog and social media accounts as well. Ben sets clear expectations for his follow-up - After sending this message on Wednesday, he notes that you'll receive another email on Friday with more information about the next version of their product. On Friday morning when the next email went out, the people who received it were excited to do so: Ontolo had built up some suspense and excitement for the next version of their software. Imagine if your leads were actually EXCITED to receive their next piece of email marketing from you. Marketing Takeaway: You don't have to kill kittens when you automate your marketing efforts. Headlines Vsnap Celebrate our Vetrans http://vthankyou.com/ http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/10/30/south-boston-start-arranges-social-media-tribute-veterans/5aexQZLtAAcAkTnOsglb0N/story.html Vsnap allows users to exchange brief video messages and attachments. The company, which is planning to launch a beta site in mid-November, is hoping to take advantage of the increasing capability of smartphones and computers to record and send video easily. started brainstorming about how it could be used to pay tribute to American veterans on Veterans Day, Nov. 11 and came up with the Vthankyou Each video message posted on the group’s Twitter and Facebook sites will unlock a $1 donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that creates programs to help injured members of the military. Seen an increase from 10-100 impressions up to 500 impressions per post on Facebook. Having trouble measuring Twitter, since not everyone uses the hashtag, however impressions have have ranged from 6,000 towards the beginning of the campaign last week to 57,000 over the past couple days or so. Vsnap.com is seeing about 54% new visitors 46% returning with an average site time 5+ minutes. Coverage in the Globe, Boston Magazine, BostInno as well as others. Marketing Takeaway: Create unique social objects FTW! Google+ Launches Business Pages http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28618/Google-Finally-Launches-Business-Pages.aspx Google+ Pages have a similar look and feel to Facebook Pages, allowing businesses to leverage the social network to connect with their audience, spread their messages, promote their content, and generate leads. http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28624/How-to-Create-a-Google-Business-Page-in-5-Simple-Steps.aspx With a network of more than 40 million members, Google+ is indeed deserving of your marketing attention, so smart marketers should set up their Google+ Pages as soon as possible. Avoid creating your business page through just any old account, such as a personal gmail account. Instead, choose a gmail account that is accessible to multiple members of your marketing team (e.g. companymarketingteam@gmail.com), and use that account to create your page. Promoting a blank page isn't a great way to convince people that your Page is valuable enough to add to their Circles. So invest some time into optimizing your page and sharing a few links to valuable content before you start promoting it to the masses. Marketing Takeaway: Haven't set up your Google+ Business page? What are you waiting for?!?! Google Launches Think Insights for Marketers http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/11/googles-think-insights-gives-marketers-plenty-to-think-about.html As if there wasn’t enough data flying around these days now Google has opened up a veritable information maniac’s fantasy land with their just out of beta Think Insights offering. Some things you can find on Think Insights Based on search history, consumer demand for pretzels peaks in what month of the year? How much (in $) does search add to the world’s GDP? In 2011, what percent of people dreamed and brainstormed about their next vacation? What percent of the daily queries on Google.com have never been seen before? A mobile example, 85% of mobile devices will be web enabled by next year. Mobile search has grown 4x in the past year. 1 in 3 mobile searches have local intent. 30% of restaurant searches are from mobile devices. Followed by related studies, articles, tools, videos & infographics Marketing Takeaway: Find interesting data and share it with everyone! Marketing Tip of the Week

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Marketing Update:Social Objects & Marketing with @GapingVoid