Put a little more effort into it

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/20/dee.obit/index.html

CNN is currently running this obituary about movie star Sandra Dee. Now, normally I'm all for people using the Internet as a means of getting a new piece of information, but this obituary is different. The only source CNN uses is the Internet Movie Database, an essentially user-created Web site where those who watch movies can post about all of the boom mic and editing errors they see in every film. Hardly a paragon of qualified research.

CNN doesn't give a firm date on the actress's birth but cites two different dates taken from Web sites (which it does not name, aside from IMDB). They are willfully failing their jobs as factgatherers (I'm not going to say that the death of a movie star from the 60s is particularly newsworthy). A simple request to see a birth certificate would solve this age variance problem.

The Internet has the potential to be a great source of information, but I'm still worried that the news organizations are relying too much on other people -- especially Internet people, who don't need to have any experience in anything to make a Web site -- to do their reporting.

But I still don't like their music

Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford and arguably the most important figure in the rhetoric of intellectual property law, wrote a column for Wired on why he felt that the band Wilco, through its use of new media and the Internet (streaming their mp3s and doing live Web casts, for example), best exemplified what will be, in Lessig's words, "The future of music."

Lessig hopes that more bands and artists will follow Wilco's lead and eschew the corporate music industry and try to make it out on an independent, smaller label. Or perhaps even without any label at all, using direct to consumer business models to cut out the middle man of the record industry.

I'd also like to point out that Christopher Lloyd made an appearance on NBC's The West Wing this week as Lessig himself. This 7th and final season of the show takes place in 2006. Apparently Lessig made the transition from hero of the nerds to the hero of democratic theorists and constitutionalists. The Lessig character is brought into the West Wing to assist in creating a democratic structure for the country of Georgia.

I haven't checked Lessig's blog yet (sidebar link), but I wonder if he had anything to say about being represented by an actor who is most famous for either solving the question of time travel, or for being a Harvard dropout/burn out who works in a taxi garage? UPDATE: There was a one line update on Lessig's blog, advertising the appearance. Nothing more beyond that.

I should start talking more about The West Wing, I think.

Apostrophe Catastrophe

From my "hometown" newspaper, the Star Tribune, comes one of the few puff pieces, certainly the only one in recent memory, that I actually felt like reading. Apparently a debate is "raging" over whether an apostrophe ought to be included in the title, "Scholars' Walk" for a construction on the University of Minnesota campus. The reporter interviewed the English department and it is suggested in the article that the Rhetoric department be consulted, too. No mention of my beloved Journalism School, though.

I agree with the chairman of the British Apostrophe Protection Society, John Richards, who says that the apostrophe is necessary. It could be because he was a journalist, as well.

Now that I know that there's something called an Apostrophe Protection Society, I know what I can do if my own journalism career doesn't pan out.

A (not quite triumphant) Return

Tonight I was inspired. After several great conversations with very smart people, I decided to return to the blogosphere once more. The Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota, where I serve as a research assistant, hosted a screening of Chuck Olsen's Blogumentary documentary. A discussion followed, featuring panelists Olsen, Dan Gillmor, easily considered the one true ally the blogosphere has in the "real media" sector, Rex Sorgatz, who runs Fimocolous, Krista Kennedy, a Ph D student in the University of Minnesota's Rhetoric department and Shane Nackerud, Webmaster for the U-MN's libraries and the coordinator of the UThink blog service.

After being reminded of what a blog is supposed to do, that is, provide a place for people to come together to discuss issuses and ideas and engage each other in a useful discursive fashion, I decided to make a point to blog at least once a week.

I made largely this same comment on Chuck's blog. Hopefully some of his traffic will wander over here and perhaps some of them might come back for a second shot. One can only hope. Though, a lack of audience certainly never stopped me, or any other blogger, before.

Howard Dean is Coming Back

I was watching the Eastern Caucus for the Democratic National Committee this weekend. Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2004, (for those of you who have already forgotten) is gunning for the chair of the Democratic National Committee. The first thing he said when he reached the podium was, "I hate the republicans and I hate everything they stand for." Perhaps if he would have said something like that a little louder during his campaign for nomination, we would have had a much different result in the primaries and the election as a whole. Oh well.

At least David Leland and Wellington Webb are supporting Dean, now that they have dropped out of the race themselves. Martin Frost, who I thought had the best overall mission statement (audition, if you'd rather) of any of the candidates thus far, isn't "officially" endorsing Dean at the moment. I suspect that will change in the next few days. Minnesota's DFL supports Dean in total. At least they're unified on that. If only they could get together on real issues.

The Minnesota Young DFL meeting is at the end of the month. I'm interested to see what we'll be entrusted in accomplishing in preparation for 2008. Perhaps I can find some suburban folks to help me on my progressive suburbs project.