Blog

Ladies and gentlemen, start your State-endorsed fundraising! Believe it or not, tomorrow, May 20, is NASCAR Day in the State of Michigan. Wear your Little E jackets and call someone on your Nextel phone “to recognize the contributions the NASCAR organization has made to better the lives of children around the country.”

Damn this state. No, you know what, damn this whole bloody mess. I officially give up.

Backtrack.

The Michigan Court of Appeals (which I believe is in Grand Rapids, since this ruling references Calder Plaza) ruled today that, well, read this:

The Michigan Court of Appeals has declared that nudity on television, even during the safe harbor period, is a violation of Michigan law prohibiting indecent exposure and such laws do not violate the First Amendment.

That’s right, the State can now ban nudity anywhere, anytime, for any reason and it does not violate the First Amendment. (That quote above doesn’t get into the meat of the ruling, whose language is vague enough to cover all forms of artwork.) Read the whole article linked at the end; it’ll make you sick.

Couple that with the draconian announcement by Michigan Liquor Control Commission Chairwoman Nida Samona that, since they got bitch-slapped by the Supreme Court, they’ll now work to ban ALL shipments of alcohol in the state. That’s right, since they can’t keep Vader-like control over the tax revenue they want to extort from consumers minors who order over the internet, no one gets to receive alcohol directly. (It’s for the children! It’s for the children! Won’t someone please think of the children?!?)

I give up.

I give up on my fellow voter. There may be one or two informed people out a random sampling of 10, but I’d doubt it. Certainly there aren’t enough to get rid of the lot that are ruining this country.

I give up on the common sense of any elected official. You may go into it sane, but you certainly don’t stay that way for long (Exhibit A, our esteemed Liquor Control Commission Chairwoman).

I give up on the sanity of this whole damn country. No one seems to have a grip on anything of importance (and you Repubertariacrats can put your hands down, too). From reality television to Terry Schiavo to IP laws, the collective cognitive failure in this country scares the piss out of me.

Is anarchy still an option? Maybe the people in Montana living in the mountains have it right. Or what we need is someone who finally stands up and unites all of us who don’t fall into the neat catergories that the parties have crafted. We need someone who says “It’s broken, to the core. Tear it down and start over.”

And then I wake up and realize that that person can’t exist. The public can’t deal with someone who tells the truth. They want to believe that rulings like today’s don’t censor artists, but instead make it safer for children to watch TV. They want to believe that taking away freedoms they already have make children safe from themselves, instead of making the State richer. They want to believe that the people they put in office are really working for the good of the public. Not me. Not anymore.

If it wasn’t so damn tragic it would be a farce.

Douglas Adams had it right; we are living inside the Asylum.

Link

Anderson Cooper‘s mother is Gloria Vanderbilt. He was also photographed by Diane Arbus.

When CNN et al read blogs on the air, they’re jumping on the bandwagon, airing the thoughts of people who took more time then did the news channels to make thoughtful posts about newsworthy topics. (See the much lauded Daily Show segment, thanks to Lisa Rein.)

But, when Adam Curry does the same thing with podcasters’ content, he’s spreading the word about podcasting. They’re even calling him the podfather? Please. I gave up on podcasts because it misses the entire point of aggregating content… it doesn’t scale. I can’t listen to more than two or three podcasts in a day–no matter how many feeds I stick in iPodder–because I can’t extend the time I have in a day to timeshift in content. Are there great podcasts? Sure, just as there are great internet radio stations. But I can’t listen to all of them either.

Finally! This was one of the stupiest (and dirty) laws Michigan had with regard to liquor sales. You can now order wine from anywhere in the country and have it shipped to Michigan.

The supporters are using the “for the children” defense, which is total crap considering that the state is pretty interested in the millions in tax revenue. Of course, if you set up a reciprocal distributership with a Michigan-licensed distrbutor, you were all set to ship into the state. So, not only did the state get tax revenue, distrbutors could price fix wine prices before the product ever crossed the state line. Nice setup.

Now I can finally order a decent kosher sparkling wine. Mmmmm.. Bartenura.

Link

And now it’s worse than ever. Copyfighters will have their rhetoric turned up and thesauruses at hand for this next round. Good luck to them too, their fighting our war.

Write your Congresscriters; this is a stupid, protectionist move. Look for Orin Hatch to sponsor the final language of this bill.

Link

Yeah, I’m going to call BS on this one. Sorry, Wonkette, even those of us who want to believe this story don’t believe it. MP3s or not, this is too off the wall for reality to even be tacitly interested.

Link

This article is especially relevant to my current work, but it is also an important reminder that humans, across the board, are creatures of habit.

[John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor] has hit on a crucial insight. “Behavior change happens mostly by speaking to people’s feelings,” he says. “This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought.”

This article is a little light on the science, but it’s a brilliantly written piece for its audience… business executives. Buy in at the C-level is so vital to the success of change management, it often a deciding factor. I can think of, oh, around 20 C-level people I’ve worked with who need to read this. Strike that. I know 20 C-level people I’ve worked with who need to understand this. Oh if only I had that magic wand.

Link

I know the technology is cool, but damn it, I don’t want this to be available to movie makers. Considering what Lucas did to the Star Wards franchise, it could now potentially smell like actually shit.

SpotScents, developed by Yasuyuki Yanagida at the Media Information Science Laboratories in Japan, uses scent projectors to deliver localized odors to a human’s nose through the air without requiring users to wear any special devices.

Link

Mr. Tufte should be required reading for anyone who dares call themselves a technical writer/author/communicator.

Link