onward to gettysburg

"Commencement
Jon Stewart's William & Mary commencement speech:
I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can't help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. And I believe we should. But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It's incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That's very nice of you, I appreciate it.
I'm sure my fellow doctoral graduates--who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless--will join in congratulating me. Thank you. "

I say, bring back the poll tax!

Wired News: Florida to Tax Home Networks

"In 1985 the state passed a law to tax businesses using their own communications networks, because otherwise the state could not collect tax revenue on the businesses' local telephone service. In 2001, that law was expanded to make "any system that is used for voice or data that connects multiple users with the use of switching or routing technology" taxable up to 16 percent.

The law is so broad that it would apply to networked computers, wireless services, two-way radios and even fax machines -- or "substitute communications systems," as the state calls them. The tax would be applicable to the costs of operating such a substitute communications system, not to the purchase of the system's components."

OPENING 01 JULY 2004

LIFE IN THE WIRES (available July 1, 2004)

Life in the Wires is about life today, from Al-Jazeera to eBay, from creatively understanding new media to analyzing how questions of gender, race, class and colonialism have been deeply transformed by networked society.

. An interactive website, continuously updated with new
supplementary materials for teaching.
. Streamed electronic seminars, regularly updated, featuring
leading contemporary intellectuals such as: Donna Haraway,
DjSpooky, Stelarc, William Leiss and Arthur Kroker, among
others.
. A general introduction by the editors to Life in the Wires
as well as thematic introductions to each section of the
Reader Index
. Key bibliographical references

Life in the Wires, is in essence what Jean-Paul Sartre calls a "fused community" - a global intellectual community of theorists, musicians, artists, filmmakers, computer programmers, multimedia designers, architects, engineers, Soweto poets, Net activists - young and old, a multiplicity of race, class, gender, nation and disciplines: writing from universities, industry, media, the streets; the design and programming centers of IT, from anti-globalization street protests, from mediawatch, from the badlands of Texas, the streets of San Francisco, the hybrid cities of Cape Town, London, Toronto, New York, Paris, Helsinki, Singapore and Berlin.

there is light at the end of the tunnel

Jim R.

I appreciate your assistance in sending job opportunities my way. I am pleased to tell you that I have accepted a position with Duquesne University as an Program Coordinator for the Pittsburgh Regional Internship Collaborative Enterprise or PRICE Program :) My first day was June 1st.
This is an initiative of the financial services cluster. I will be coordinating internships for post secondary and high school students in order for them to gain the necessary skills to obtain jobs in financial institutions. The goal is retention of talent for the Pittsburgh region. I'm excited to be part of this team.
I will stay in touch. Again, thank you so much for your help!
Melissa P.

i seek you

Resumes, CVs and More: Organizing Your Qualifications
from Yahoo! HotJobs
By Todd Anten

"Salespeople have a variety of pitches they can make when selling a product.
It's just a matter of deciding which pitch is the right one for that customer.
Now, think of a potential employer as a customer and yourself as the
salesperson -- and the product."
"In order to successfully sell yourself, you have to face a tough decision: How to
advertise your qualifications in the most effective way possible. It may involve a chronological resume or a functional resume ... or perhaps no resume at all."

Here are some basic options:
monster
yahoo
fast company
career builder
federal gov't

how i spent my summer vacation

Uhlich Report Card
" Teenagers give adults mixed grades in a yearly report card.

The Uhlich Teen Report Card finds young Americans give adults "C-" in stopping young people from drinking, getting rid of gangs, understanding why teens leave home and listening to and understanding young people."

(..uhh. does this mean i'm gonna get detention?..jim)

OUT AND ABOUT

ThePittsburghChannel.com - Community - Pittsburgh Summer Concert Calendar

PLEASE! Just take a break. Go on--get out of here!

Remember: Life and liberty are subject to change.
Check with your superiors if you have any questions.

For tickets, call 412-323-1919 or go to
Ticketmaster.com or
CC.com.

How Nonprofits Use the Internet to Get Ahead :: Memes.org :: Memes are Mind Viruses

How Nonprofits Use the Internet to Get Ahead :: Memes.org :: Memes are Mind Viruses

The basic rules of mission, fundraising, and governance still apply even though technology and new media strategies are changing how nonprofits and non-governmental organizations operate, said Steve Delfin, Booz Allen and Hamilton's worldwide director of community relations. Source Article.

You’ll need more than a nice-looking Web site and a "Donate Now" button. Experts swapped tips at the 2004 Social Enterprise Conference. by Martha Lagace, Senior Editor, HBS Working Knowledge

The Internet can be a fantastic tool for fundraising and for engaging your constituents, but it needs to be powered by a smart strategy.

That was the message from four experienced devotees of Internet use for nonprofit organizations at the 2004 Social Enterprise Conference on March 6, in the panel session titled "Internet Strategies for Nonprofit Marketing, Campaigning, Advocacy, and Community Building."

"Just putting up a Web site and a 'Donate Now' button doesn't mean money will come flowing in," said Ted Hart, president and CEO of ePhilanthropy Foundation, based in Washington, D.C.

"There are no shortcuts to raising money online or offline," he added. "But with technology, there are more efficiencies and the opportunity to reach out to more people. And that is what should be drawing nonprofits to the use of the Internet."

News From Babylon : Your License, Your Urine

News From Babylon : Your License, Your Urine

just reid: this also falls into the catagory of--our bodies are not our own. it follows the dna technology and law marriage and helps to crystallize our view of the control, discipline and surveillence that can be brought to bear upon the average u.s. citizen.

we are the 9volt battery of this century!

United States Patent: 6,754,472
Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for distributing power and data to devices coupled to the human body are described. The human body is used as a conductive medium, e.g., a bus, over which power and/or data is distributed. Power is distributed by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. One or more devise to be powered, e.g., peripheral devices, are also coupled to the human body via additional sets of electrodes. The devices may be, e.g., a speaker, display, watch, keyboard, etc. A pulsed DC signal or AC signal may be used as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices can be selectively powered. Digital data and/or other information signals, e.g., audio signals, can be modulated on the power signal using frequency and/or amplitude modulation techniques.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventors: Williams; Lyndsay (Cambridge, GB); Vablais; William (Woodinville, WA); Bathiche; Steven N. (Bellevue, WA)
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Appl. No.: 559746
Filed: April 27, 2000

...and in local news...

School chiefs shuffled
By Violet Law
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 23, 2004

"The city school board Tuesday night began the process of transferring principals and other administrators in preparation for the closing of 10 schools in September.
Thus far, eight schools are getting new principals. They are:

Bon Air Elementary, Patricia Fisher (half time); King Elementary, LaVerne Anthony; Mann Elementary, Todd Van Horn; Weil Technology Institute, Vivian Wilson; Westwood Elementary, Denise Littles-Cullens; Columbus Middle, Kevin McGuire; South Hills Middle, Michael Steele; and Oliver High, Lawrence Hubbard."

repeat after me...

Phrase of the Day
Shinbun o yomu.
Read the newspaper.

shinbun= newspaper
yomu = to read
("O" is a particle which marks an object.)

Cong-aid

Congress Weighs Changes
To Expand Reach
Of College Aid
By Sean Cavanagh
Washington

"Every year, the federal government pours billions of dollars into programs designed to help students and families pay for college, offering a multitude of grant, loan, and work-study options, some spiced with federal subsidies aimed at making it cheaper to borrow money and easier to pay off debt.

Yet as the number of teenagers heading to higher education surges and the costs of helping them climbs, members of Congress are trying to offset that fiscal burden by targeting portions of the student-aid puzzle for cuts."

(...who would be affected by these cuts? who would benefit from the re-direction of this funding?...jim)

Size Matters

In N.Y.C., Fast-Paced
Drive for Small Schools

By Caroline Hendrie
New York

"Racking up the F’s as he drifted through 9th grade at a 2,500-student high school, Ansel Farrell seemed well on his way to becoming just another dropout from the Bronx.

Then came a fresh start as a freshman in one of this city’s new generation of small public high schools. Now he is wrapping up 10th grade at Bronx High School for the Visual Arts with a portfolio that recently landed him in an expenses-paid summer program designed to prepare disadvantaged young artists for college.


"Before I came here, I had no goal in life," said the 18-year- old immigrant from Trinidad, as he leafed through his portfolio after a recent art class. "Now I go to school because I want to be an artist. I love attention. I want to be famous."

Big dreams like that are just what New York City’s sweeping initiative to start new small high schools is all about. Determined to give thousands more teenagers like Mr. Farrell a reason to come to school, education leaders here are in the midst of what is arguably the nation’s most ambitious drive to "scale up" scaled-down schooling."

(...excerpt from EducationWeek. have to register to read more. sorry...jim)

just reid:

NonProfit Quarterly

the current edition:Nonprofit Social Psychology: The Ties that Bind Us.
(also an interesting article on the use of web logs for nonprofit orgs...jim)

"What's a Blog, and why should Nonprofits care?"

excerpt:Getting Your Nonprofit Up and Blogging

"Step One

Decide the purpose of your blog. Ask yourself these questions:

What role would updated content play in the scheme of your current Web site?
What projects or organizational objectives do you have that may be candidates for blogs?
What are the costs and benefits of establ ishing a blog? Which staff members have the time, desire and knowledge to make a blog effective? What challenges will the organization face in teaching staff to blog well or motivating staff to maintain blogs?
Is this blog public or private? In other words, with whom do you want to share information--staff, partners or organizations around the world?
Step Two

Choose a blog "client," an application that will allow you to create content and post it online. In choosing your blog client, consider your organization's technology capacity. If you don't maintain your own Web site, it may be easier to use a Web-based client. These applications are inexpensive and easy to use, but their features and flexibility are limited. Web-based blog clients include:

Blog-City, http://www.blog-city.com
Blogger, http://new.blogger.com
EasyJournal, http://www.easyjournal.com
Easyblog, http://www.easyblog.com
Typepad, https://www.typepad.com
If your organization has more technology capacity, and particularly if you maintain your own Web site, you may prefer to use full-featured software that will allow you to install a blog on your Web server and integrate the blog with your existing Web design. Popular blog software clients include:

Grey Matter, http://www.noahgrey.com/greysoft
Radio UserLand, http://radio.userland.com
Movable Type, http://www.movabletype.org
A third option is to implement a content management system for your Web site that includes blogs among other tools like e-mail, listservs and message boards. Two distinct, nonprofit-friendly variations on this theme include Your- Mission (http://www.yourmission.net) and Plone (http://plone.org).

Step Three

Get ready to write. An effective blog will require a certain amount of diligence and creative energy from you and your colleagues. While the purpose of the blog will dictate the focus of your writing, your perusal of blogs, Web sites, lists and other online news outlets will provide you with new, interesting sources to link to and will enhance your blog. Keep in mind that blogging is as much about sharing information as it is creating information. What you write should be useful and understandable to readers.

Step Four

Find your audience, and help your audience to find you. With the proliferation of blogs and other online content, you can't simply assume that "if you build it, they will come." Here are some easy ways to get the word out about your blog:

Give out your blog's URL in addition to or instead of your e-mail address.
Join weblog indices, directories and aggregator sites, such as Eatonweb Portal (http://portal.eaton web.com), BlogSearchEngine.com and NPO blogs.org.
Ask other bloggers to include you in their "blogroll," the list of blogs that they point to from their site. This typically is an informal, reciprocal relationship --if someone links to you, you also link back to them.
And an important way to get a feel for your audience is to employ a "comments" tool on your blog that allows readers to post messages commenting on your posts or on other comments. This can help to create an active community among your readers, which may encourage them to read your blog more frequently.

Take these tips as a warm-up. Talk with others who currently have or are considering starting blogs, and remember that there is no uniform method for implementing a blog at your nonprofit. According to Sisnett, "You have to give yourself time to tinker with a new tool."

we are all crash-test dummies

joke: mini-Cooper and F-150 both hit a concrete wall @ 40mph. Which driver walks away?
answer:?????

(...who, me? i'm a 'Ford Truck man'...jim)

...a happy ending!

Roughing it

The MemeMachine

A man and his 12-year-old daughter spent the last four years living in a remote hillside in Portland’s Forest Park, police said. […] Police found an elaborate camp dug into a steep hillside. Under a tarp-covered, wood-framed shelter, they found sleeping bags, a partially burnt log, a Bible, a stack of old World Book Encyclopedias, rakes and other tools. A rope swing, a tilled vegetable garden and a small creek were nearby. […] The man, who identified himself as Frank, told police he was a 53-year-old Marine Corps veteran and college graduate who served in Vietnam. He came to Oregon with his daughter, Ruth, from Tacoma with no job and virtually no money. Frank told police that the girl’s mother was institutionalized in New Hampshire, and the two now lived on a $400-a-month disability check. Rather than live on the streets and expose Ruth to alcohol and drugs, Frank said, they hiked deep into Forest Park and built a lean-to. The pair went into the city twice a week to stop by the bank, attend church, buy groceries and clothes from Goodwill. Frank, a devout Christian, said he taught his daughter using the old encyclopedias. […] Even though the child and father lived for such a long time disconnected from society, the girl had been home schooled and was in good physical shape. In fact, the girl received a very good education from her father while living among the trees. Officials said the girl, who would be normally in 7th grade, is at a 12th grade equivalency.[…] Police persuaded them to leave the camp, promising help them find food and shelter. The pair spent two nights at a homeless shelter. Barkley found the man a job and a place for the two to live on a friend’s horse farm in Yamhill County. Now, Barkley said, the pair are living in a mobile home and adjusting to life with heat, electricity and running water. The man mows lawns and is learning to drive a tractor, and the pair ride bicycles to a nearby church on Sundays. Nice to see that this story had a happy ending.

CORO LEADERS @ BIDWELL TRAINING CENTER

just say CORO
(...met with an excellent group of people from the Coro Leadership program. i hope they will enjoy a long and successful career in public service...jim)

"Coro program participants learn about the real world in the real world --
by actively questioning, interacting with diverse constituents, finding resources and coming up with innovative solutions to the problems faced by their communities. Together, participants explore community dynamics, leadership and decision-making, while building the skills necessary for successful careers in business, politics, education, government and the non-profit sectors."

you have the right to remain silent; but it'll cost you!

Court: Names Must Be Revealed
wired news

The Supreme Court says people must give their names to cops when they ask for it, and cops have the right to arrest people who refuse. One privacy advocate says the government just turned silence into a crime.

(...i'll probably never be arrested. why should this be of any concern to me? jim...)

just reid: didn't see this coming.

AlterNet: Graduation 2004: Pomp and Crummy Circumstances
"How did we get to the point as a society where low taxes are more important than providing the opportunity for as many of our children as possible to get a higher education? Where we would rather shut students out of college classrooms than shut down the tax shelters that are costing states billions in revenue each year?"

(...the avg state/federal inmate costs? )

"While economic costs, defined in simple dollar terms, are secondary to human costs, they do illustrate the scale of the criminal justice system. The cost of housing, feeding and caring for the inmate population in the United States is over 40 billion dollars per year. In the State of California alone, the cost of maintaining each inmate in the correctional system is about $26,000 per year. And despite the high expenditures in prison, there remain urgent, unmet needs in the prison system.
To compare prison costs with the cost of educating school children is, to some extent, to compare apples with oranges, because the State must assume the full burden of housing, subsistence, and medical care for prisoners."
SPEECH AT THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING
An Address by Anthony M. Kennedy
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
August 9, 2003