byJoeyBaker » General News

Starbucks Just Won Me Over

Joey — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:50:44 +0000

I’m watching Saturday Night Live right now, and just saw a commercial from Starbucks making the case not only to vote, but for just caring. Oh, and they promised a free cup of coffee if you vote on Tuesday.More after the show.Update: The ad is on the front page of Starbuck’s right now (it’s not embeddable).Update 2: Found on YouTube (now).

Post show…(next day, after falling asleep after SNL)

I guess I should explain why this ad got me so excited. Essentially, I see this ad as a great experiment in viral marketing for both Starbucks and politics.Starbucks has positioned themselves as a high-end, green, luxury, hang-out for hipsters and soccer moms both. Voting is such a good topic for them to try to tackle – it affects both groups equally. Giving out a freebie in this poor economy when luxury goods are suffering from their elastic nature is a great idea.Far more important is the social example. Roughly 64% of the country votes, and that’s despicable. If more companies publicly supported politics in general (as in Starbucks), or even took sides (as in many Silicon Valley Companies) perhaps the apathy that my generation feels would be decreased. Corporate sponsorship sounds like a good idea to me :)Similar Posts:

How to Save Afghanistan – TIME

Joey — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:39:20 +0000

Our efforts in nation-building, governance and counternarcotics should be smaller and more creative. This is not because these issues are unimportant; they are vital for Afghanistan’s future. But only the Afghan government has the legitimacy, the knowledge and the power to build a nation. The West’s supporting role is at best limited and uncertain.

-How to Save Afghanistan – TIME

TIME’s article How to Save Afghanistan is fantastically written and simply worded. It presents a surprisingly easy solution for how to fix Afghanistan – do less.The solution is deceptively simple when you think about it. We suck at building a government. We’re good at education (well, better than Afghanistan anyway). We’re good at farming. We can train an army. We can build power plants. Let’s stop trying to fight all these insurgents. Let’s stop trying to tell the Afghans how to run their country. Let’s just give them the support ask for to build their country up. If they try to build something we don’t like? We don’t support it.

Transforming a nation of 32 million people is a task not for the West but for Afghans.

Similar Posts:

Ooooo Shiny!

Joey — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:02:53 +0000

Warning: This post a rant. It is highly political, and … well, I really just want to get this off my chest.

Spurred by the continued housing crisis, turmoil in financial markets, spiking oil prices, disappearing jobs and shrinking retirement savings, the nation and its political leaders have begun to sour on the notion that the current market system [the free market] is the key to a fair, stable and efficient society.

-Americans may be losing faith in free markets – Los Angeles Times

I’ve blogged several times (1, 2, 3, more) in the last couple of weeks on the success of the free market in correcting downward trends in the news business. I’ve got a lot of faith in the law of supply and demand to eventually correct itself.That’s the keyword: eventually.Markets don’t correct themselves overnight. There is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to economics, but it seems that the US populace has become so enamored with instant feedback that we expect everything to just happen.

just happens

Bardgelina’s

just happens

9 soldiers dying

_Iraq

_{(oh right, we already forgot about that war)}

just happens

Global warming doesn’t just happen.The energy_oil deficit doesn’t just happen.The Presidency eroding constitutional rights of the Congress, the Judiciary, the Press, and the People, doesn’t just happen.An economic recession doesn’t just happen.A robust economy doesn’t just happen.

This society, that so needs instant gratification, needs to learn that there are limits to what technology provides.

Just because the cell phone lets us say “I’ll just call you,” instead of planning ahead,Just because you can text message, twitter, facebook status, IM, or blog,Just because you can find, meet, date, engage, online,Just because we can watch live pictures of our tanks rolling across foreign boarders,It doesn’t mean that technology has solved all the world’s problems. Our country, our society, has a system in place that works. Yes, the system needs to be changed from time to time, we’ve done it a lot. But do we need to abandon our Constitution, our economic policies, our way of life just because there are bad times?The free market works. It goes in cycles of good and bad times, but it works. It’s natural. Please, please, just because we’ve allowed our government to abandon its system, don’t think the economy needs to change. It’s not worth it! It’s not right!STOP with the ADD! The grass is not always greener, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Try not to pick up every shiny object that comes your way, sometimes, it’s a chainsaw.Similar Posts:

Seen WallE? This Is Hilarious

Joey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:33:53 +0000

BnL World NewsThis is really only funny if you’ve seen WallE, but it sure is funny.…Until you start thinking about the sad truth about this site. The media industry is moving in this direction. This is an example of the ultimate media conglomerate. I’ll leave it there before I get into a weird and far-fetched thought experiment.Similar Posts:

For More, ‘I Told You So.’

Joey — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:12:37 +0000

As if the prove the now well-accepted fact that the Fourth Estate failed in its duties prior to the start of the Iraqi War and through out the Bush Administration, Scott McClellan, former press secretary, completely denounces his former bosses.

“If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq,” the former spokesman writes. “The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

-Bush’s Former Spokesman Scorches White House with Tell All Memoir | MediaCulture | AlterNet

The more that comes out, the more it becomes obvious what the failure of the press means. High level government officials broke the law. They’ve lied (hey, look at that I used the ‘L’ word) and not been held accountable. Furthermore, no one’s held the press accountable.Come to think of that… who is the press answerable to? What’s the check/balance for them? The people?I’ll leave this at “food for thought” before it becomes a rant.

Update:

The press is giving this story a fantastic spin.The media has decided to cover this story, by getting a reaction from the … White House. I guess when in doubt, turn to the administration to see what they have to say.Coverage could have swayed toward other former-administration insiders who have also publicly talked about the administration’s lies, but instead the media went with interviews from administration officials who said McClellan is “misguided for him to make these kind of broad accusations and draw these big conclusions about the president.”Here’s a link to the NY Times more balanced coverage.Similar Posts:

Not News to Me…

Joey — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:51:24 +0000

I’ve been straying away from posting ‘general news’ with the intent to focus more on journalism and photography related issues. However, there are sometimes issues that I can’t help but comment on:Surprise, surprise; Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Part of the agency’s case hinges on 18 documents listed in the report and presented to Iran that, according to Western intelligence agencies, indicate the Iranians have ventured into explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that ordinarily would be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.

-Nuclear Agency Accuses Iran of Willful Lack of Cooperation – NYTimes.com

I recently wrote a paper on the Iranian nuclear problem – the argument was severely hurt by a report from the US intelligence community stating that Iran had stopped work on nuclear weapons in 2003. Well, here’s to US ‘intelligence:’

“The Iranians are certainly being confronted with some pretty strong evidence of a nuclear weapons program and they are being petulant and defensive,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security. “The report lays out what the agency knows and it is very damning. I’ve never seen it laid out quite like this.”

Actually, I can tie this back to the press. Let’s talk about bias in the media. Take a moment to read this excerpt from the first article:

A National Intelligence estimate published last December by American intelligence agencies concluded that Iran suspended its work on a weapons design in late 2003, in response apparently to mounting international pressure, adding that it wasn’t certain whether the weapons work had resumed.The agency’s report highlights the amount of work still to be done before definitive conclusions about the nature of the program can be made, a task that the agency-associated official said would require months.

[Bolding applied]

When this news was first broken, the New York Times’ coverage took a stance directly contradictory. There was little mention the surety of the government towards the restarting of the program. The focus was entirely about the stopping of the nuclear program in 2003. Here’s the lead from the article:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

-U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work – NYTimes.com

Though the article does go on to quote, “that intelligence agencies ‘do not know whether it [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons,’” the news coverage at the time hardly focused on that angle. There is a bit of revisionist history here. The media has a bad tendency to focus on the sensational. If the NIE was inconclusive enough to say that it was not sure what the current status of the Iranian nuclear program was, then that should have been the focus of the reporting. Using the ‘stopped in five years ago’ angle is either poor reporting or dishonesty.The second bolding from the excerpt is just another complaint I have about the whole international nuclear process/angencies/bumbling: It’s been years since Iran started to develop nuclear weapons (clearly prior to 2003). It sounds like we’ve got pretty solid evidence that they’re violating some rules:

“The agency also said that during a visit in April, it was denied access to sites where centrifuge components are being manufactured and where research of uranium enrichment is being conducted.”
“The report makes no effort to disguise the agency’s frustration with Iran’s lack of transparency. It describes, for example, Iran’s installation of new centrifuges, known as the IR-2 and IR-3 (for Iranian second and third generations) and other modifications at its sprawling site at Natanz, as ‘significant, and as such should have been communicated to the agency.’”

I’m unclear. What’s going to take “months” to do? I don’t get it; Iran is clearly in violation of the rules/international law. What’s stopping someone from doing something about it?Similar Posts:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Did Happen to That War?

Joey — Mon, 26 May 2008 05:52:10 +0000

Ashley Gilbertson, a freelance photographer who has covered the war for Newsweek, Time and The New York Times and has written about covering the conflict in a book called “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” will be going back to Iraq in June. It will be his sixth time there, temperatures will range up to 130 degrees, and each time he has gone back there have been new restrictions.“Many of my colleagues have turned away from the story because it has gotten to the point where they feel they just aren’t going to get anything useful, which I completely understand,” he said, adding that nonetheless, when the surge ends this summer, he wants to be there to chronicle what follows.

-The Media Equation – The Wars We Choose to Ignore – NYTimes.com

David Carr, for The New York Times, wrote this excellent piece about the abysmal state of press coverage of the war in Iraq. Weaving in some fantastic personal reminders that the War is indeed still going on, Carr reminds the rest of Americans that on Memorial Day we ought to think long and hard about “a war that had cost thousands of lives and over $1 trillion” all the while loosing “news salience.”

According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has slipped to 3 percent of all American print and broadcast news as of last week, falling from 25 percent as recently as last September.“Ironically, the success of the surge and a reduction in violence has led to a reduction in coverage,” said Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “There is evidence that people have made up their minds about this war, and other stories — like the economy and the election — have come along and sucked up all the oxygen.”

This, is of course, just another example of the poor state of the Fourth Estate in this country. Carr is far from the first person to voice this concern and is probably not the most eloquent to do so, but the point still stands: the news media needs to do their job. It needs to report on the government and the war. Ratings, which are nothing more than poll results, ought to come secondary to the primary purpose of the news industry – to give news to the people. Yes, the media does in fact have a higher moral obligation that it is required to fulfill.Furthermore, I don’t buy the argument that there is nothing happening and therefore nothing to report. We manage to fill the airwaves with 24 hours of ‘news’ occurring in this country. Surely there is just as many stories to be told in not one, but two war zones!?If the government is restricting access, then get around them. That’s the job of the Fourth Estate: to uncover the things the government is trying to hide.No doubt, reporting in a war zone in dangerous. Especially in the Middle East where kidnapping journalists has become a standard practice. Undoubtedly, having protection of US troops is a huge comfort and an increase in safety.

No trip outside the Green Zone is remotely safe. The enemy lurks everywhere among the population. Attackers show no mercy for innocent bystanders, who commonly outnumber intended targets. Each mission carries the threat of roadside bombs, suicide attacks by explosives-packed cars and trucks, and ambushes by insurgents.

-The Deadly Game of Private Security – The New York Times

Yet, I have to wonder if the press can’t resort to the same tactics that the US military is resorting to – private military contractors. Surely someone can figure out how to not be as reliant (or complacent) as the press apparently is on the US government to tell them what to cover and where they can cover it from.As I write this (22:31 PST) here are what some of the top news websites have on their front pages:

CNN	FOX	NYT	WaPo
Lead: China quake	Lead: Mars lander	Lead: Midwest storms	Lead: China aftershock
Nothing on Iraq or Afghanistan	Nothing on Iraq or Afghanistan	2 articles about Iraq, both small and buried	3 tertiary articles (fairly prominent) about related issues, 1 buried link

Shocking. The broadcast media has nothing about the war, while the print media carries a few stories.Similar Posts:

The Middle East Gets Press Freedom?

Joey — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:46:28 +0000

“We aim to produce an excellent newspaper out of the region” that will set a new standard for other publications to aspire to, said Hassan M. Fattah, the deputy editor, who was a correspondent for The New York Times in the Middle East before joining The National. “Being government-owned does not equal being government-run,” he said. “There are no ministers sitting in my office” telling the paper what to write.

-A New Mideast Paper Vows to Be Different – New York Times

Abu Dhabi has a new, free newspaper – despite being owned by the crown prince (and therefore the government) So far so good, today’s front page of their website had a story about rock quarries producing too much dust for government standards. The story not quite an exposè – it’s actually not even new news, and the story doesn’t specify the government’s role in the matter beyond saying that the judiciary has already ruled on the matter. However, it is a good issue to call attention to, and good to see on a front page of a newspaper that’s trying to separate itself from the government.

Already, the paper has attracted some serious competition: on Monday, The Financial Times of London said that it was introducing a new edition for the Middle East, with editorial offices based in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi is one of the more westernized countries in the Middle East, and things look good so far, but it’s definitely a ‘wait and see’ case.Similar Posts:

CNN.Com Survives Random Outages – CNET News.com

Joey — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:37:44 +0000

CNN.com survives random outages | Defense in Depth – computer security, hacking, crime, viruses – CNET News.com

To make the attack on CNN a literal truth, Chinese Hackers have launched a DoS attack on CNN.com. They’ve got so far as to launch a downloadable tool for all those interested in assisting in the next attack.How does bringing down a media outlet help stop western media bias? …when the bias is that the Chinese society is closed and not open to hearing outside opinions?Similar Posts:

Chinese ‘Free Press’

Joey — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:16:27 +0000

That’s the image that has served as the banner on top of China’s largest internet portal Sina.com. C|Net notes the violent imagery against CNN is disturbing, to say the least.All of this in protest to CNN’s ‘media bias’ against the Chinese. Similar Posts: