"We like the C-SPAN model..."

...As do I, which I why I recommend this new site, loaded with unedited political, cultural, and socially-related videos, transcripts and forums (ahem): FORA.tv




A quick look at their about page clues the reader in to their philosophy of engaged democracy, using the promise of Web 2.0 to deliver information and fully interactive environment to facilitate discussion and sharing of ideas:

Travel to New York and pick up the Village Voice. Or look in TimeOut London. Or check out the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Sydney Morning Herald. Every day, poets, authors, policy experts, activists, madmen, government leaders, visionary thinkers speak in public, hosted by institutions such as nonprofit councils, bookstores, universities, or public spaces. If you're lucky, their remarks will be covered by the press, edited and compressed, and hard to find when you want it.

But you can't be there. You can't express your opinions. You can't chat with other likeminded or different-minded listeners. You can't easily search for similar content, study background material, read the transcript.

FORA.tv enables a new, global media opportunity by aggregating a daily range of events, produced and electronically shipped by institutions or freelance producers, from around the world.

Scan further through the Bios of its staff, and you'll see an interesting mix of executives, investors and advisors: a former News Corp(!) Marketing Director for Australia's FOXTEL (Brian Gruber, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer); Hearst family heir and director of the Hearst Corporation and Hearst-Argyle Television, William Randolph Hearst, III; a former record label exec (Bob Appel, Senior Vice President, Operations); and current CUNY Professor of English and Journalism, and columnist for Media Matters For America and the Nation, Eric Alterman.

They've also got former Discovery Channel exec and chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, Don Baer, on the board.

Fairly diverse group, I'd say.

And it's heartening to see such a diverse and monied media group buck the trend and work together to encourage dialog, unfiltered:

Why don't you edit programs?

We like the C-SPAN model. No intermediation, no one deciding what you should or should not see. Have access to the entire event, with search and browsing tools that allow you to watch a chapter, or "snack" on short segments, either to get a sense of what the program offers or to get what you want, easily and enjoyably.

Put that in your snack-hole, FOX.

You've been totally C-SPAN'd!


P.S. - Also check out the FORA.tv Blog!

Paul and Me

Paul Krugman is on the right. That's me on the left. --Well, my blurry left arm on the left, as I'm moving out of the frame.

But - really - it's really me. With The Krug. Well, next to the Paulster, anyway, just after he signed my freshly purchased copy of The Conscience of a Liberal.

Karrie valiantly tried to capture the moment with my super-crappy Treo 650 built-in camera. -With people waiting and calendar-reminders flashing/interrupting, you see the results above...

May God Bless You, Karrie, for the effort.

Pauly spoke at Seattle's Town Hall last night to a packed crowd, wasting no time illuminating our slow descent into 'movement conservative' hell during the last 50-odd years -- a modern U.S. phenomenon (not shared by any other advanced westernized country in the 20th century), wherein this country's disparity of wealth has effectively returned us to the Gilded Age of the 1890s. This extreme wealth polarization paved the way to the Great Depression, from which only the likes of FDR could rescue us, save western-style democracy (and U.S-style capitalism from its own excesses), and point us on a path to a true majority middle class society that carried us through the 1960s.

Mr. K's book investigates how this subsequent backward slide into rising poverty rates, massive federal debt, and rapidly ballooning incomes of the top fraction of 1% of the population could have happened -- and how we can put ourselves back on the right (uh, left...progressive!) track: Certified Robber-Baron Free®.

I very much look forward to reading it.

Krugmaster P claims to be in good spirits after researching and writing this book. He said himself he hasn't been this optimistic in years about the political future of this country, and how close we are to being truly able to correct many of the ills brought on us all in the last 7 years.

...And with Paul by my side -- even if only figuratively -- I hope to reclaim my optimism, too.




P.S. - Check out Paul Krugman's new blog! I guess if he can start blogging, then there's no better time for me to (re-)start...