As much as I may have maligned the whole notion of Twitter, I must confess there is something quite addictive and almost compulsive in boiling down your thoughts and opinions to 140 characters. This, they say, is how the new media generation communicates and blogging in the traditional sense holds no value or interest to them.
Of course, Twitter being a spin off of texting, it is only natural that the generations who have grown up with a cellphone as standard accessory would influence how we communicate. And for those of us who have had to struggle just to keep moderately apace of the ever changing world that is the "new media" we do, at times, find the inner Luddite in us toeing lines in the sand as to how much were going to chase each trend that comes along. I'm still putting my money on "My Space" making a come back so that I can joyously puff to all my kith and kindred who migrated to Facebook that theirs was a fool's errand (though, I'm not holding my breath.)
Suffice it to say that when a colleague invited me to join Twitter I initially scoffed but gave in as so many of the people I respect were "tweeting." And I've come to realize that Twitter does have it's advantages and attractiveness that makes it a worthwhile addition to the toolkit of even the most gray bearded of the new media user. As a headline generator.
Which is how I use it. For the most part I concentrate on posting my daily updates to the Pax Gaea Human Rights Report and tweeting the headine of the most current or relevant human rights article to promote the update. This in turn gets reposted on the Red Meat Liberal My Space page thus, hopefully, expanding the potential audience base through retweeting.
Of course, not far down the road, some other 14 years old tech geek will invent the next thing to obsolete Twitter (in fact, I'm sure the more savvy of you are already using the new form.) But, for now, Twitter, My Space and the periodic blog works just fine for me.
I'll broaden further when the need calls for it. In the interim, where's my eight track player jamming a Quadrophonic Wall of Sound?
Labels: Blogging, human rights, My Space, Pax Gaea, Twitter
Kim Jong's World
Having just updated
North Korea's Human Rights Report page, it strikes me how this nation seems perpetually stuck in neutral.
North Korea achieved an important concession last October when the U.S. State Department officially removed them from the
List of State Sponsors of Terrorism. It was hoped that this would invigorate the stalemated six-party talks focused on North Korea's suspected attempts to enrich plutonium to weapons' grade. It looked as if North Korea was on the road to normalizing relations with the outside world, a process started in the 90's when the two
Koreas had made diplomatic and commercial steps which gave many the impression that the peninsula was on its way to unification.
But North Korea, one of the world's last Cold War relics, remains perpetually paranoid and suspicious of the west, particularly the United States. Not that the fear is totally unfounded. While North and South Korea officially stopped fighting in 1953, a peace treaty has never been forged. Rather, the two nations have relied upon a cease-fire which effectively left the border militarized with about a million North Koreans, 500,000 South Koreans and
25,000 American soldiers still stationed near the border. It is amazing the, some 56 years later, the United States has as many soldiers prepared to do battle with North Korea as it has in
Afghanistan right now. Add that to the fact that South Korea's new president is much
more conservative and much less accommodating then the previous administration seemed only to harden North Korea's resolve to give the impression that they are still ready to resume the Cold War anytime.
Kim
Jong-
Il is often painted as a brutal dictator who starves his people while pursuing a nuclear arsenal. Famine claimed an estimated
2.5 and 3 million North Koreans between 1995 and 1998 and the threat of returning famine and crop loss due to flooding has plagued the nation these last few years. And South Korea's President Lee has taken a
hard line stance, insisting that food aid from the South be directly linked to progress made in the nuclear disarmament of the North. Consider also that rumours have persisted that Kim
Jong-
Il had experienced a stroke last summer and even North Korean press has stated that Kim is "
not in the best of health" suggests that the government is sending up trial
baloons for the North Koreans to prepare for a life without Kim. As none of Kim's sons are natural successors as he was to his father Kim Sun-
Il, evidenced by the fact that
none stood for legislative elections last month, it could be that, like Cuba, the cult of personality is becoming yet another Cold War relic which will may not be sustainable for dictatorships of the future.
Which begs the question, who is really in charge of North Korea? Some reports suggest
Chang Sung Taek, Kim-
Jong-
Il's brother-in-law and head of the secret police. If so, perhaps that can help explain why two American journalists have been detained for supposedly illegally crossing into North Korea to report on a growing refugee flight from North Korea to China. Add to that the official "strongly worded statement" from the UN Security Council for
North Korea's rocket launch over Japan and it seems that any attempts to break out of isolation have thus far fallen victim to North Korea's fear of the outside world.
Kim may be ill but, his reemergence from isolation may show that, at least to the powers that be, the people of North Korea feel at ease living in Kim
Jong's world, even if he makes the rest of the planet uncomfortable in what seems to be an endless replay of the 50's. Not the sock hops and bobby socks... the duck and cover part.
Labels: human rights, Kim Jong-Il, North Korea, Pax Gaea
So, after almost two years of neglect, it's time to get back to the Human Rights World Post. I wish time allowed me to elaborate on the long lapse since the last post or my intent for the future. Suffice it to say, I hope to use this space to give frequent updates on the state of human rights on both a macro level, such as the
Human Rights Summit now underway in Geneva or my most recent
Pax Gaea Human Rights Report. I just completed my second year and second round of updates, With over 240 countries and polling nearly 500 sources from Human Rights organizations around the globe, Pax Gaea is one of a kind.
Human Rights means different things to different people. For me, they mean the
fundamental expectations that the governed should always expect from their government. It is not only because it is the right way to treat people but is the best assurance the world has towards achieving real and lasting peace. Basic decency, the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is not just a loft ideal espoused some
233 years ago by American revolutionaries, but the very least we should all expect from those who lead and lord over us.
If you haven't checked out
Pax Gaea in awhile, please do. Ours is a magnificent world peopled by fascinating, amazing, inspiring and, sometimes, heart-breaking individuals. We are a species with amazing potential and, sadly, seldom aware of how far we've come and how far we have to go before we live up to our ultimate potential.
Enjoy.
Labels: human rights, Human Rights Summit, Pax Gaea
Okay, so now that the Tour de France is over I can actually allow this blog to return to my task list. Four plus hours a day of cycling kind of blows my productivity thus, alas, piffly blog entries moved to the backburner.
Final thoughts on this year,s three-week spectacle through France. The doping scandal took its toll knocking a yellow jersey winner and the projected winner on the road out of contention. Not because he tested positive but because he was unavailable for about six weeks to randomly submit to on demand urine samples which is a condition of the powers that be that oversee the sport of professional cycling. He said he was in Mexico with his Mexican national wife. A sports journalist swears he saw him training in the mountains of Italy. Someone's lying so Patrick Rassmussen was considered guilty until proven innocent and bounced from the tour by his team right after the Danish Cycling Federation dropped him from the national team. That's how bad the sport has become. The top contenders never made it out of the starting gate because they supposedly failed pre-race tests. Another top rider who was putting out miracle like performances was accused of an illegal transfusion of someone elses oxygenated blood and was kicked off the tour. Next year, the French are looking to make changes to the few teams that are invited every year, hinting that half of the teams will be French amateurs.
My take? I think France can't face the fact that they are inferior performers in the sport so they've launched a witch hunt against the world's top cyclists to better the odds that a Frenchman will climb onto the top slot of the podium, something which hasn't happened since 1985. The next year, American Greg Lemond took the Yellow Jersey which has resided on American shoulders for 11 of the last 23 years with brief stops on Irish, German, Italian, Danish and Spanish riders for the other 12. All their machinations this year didn't work as a Spaniard, Australian and American held the top three places on the podium, two of which rode for America's Discovery Channel Team.
But let's just say that every single doping allegation is true. In my view, who cares? Sports are no longer about the love of competition but about money. Billions of dollars per year are paid out in salaries and endorsements and tens of billions are raked in by the owners of teams and sports facilities. The money only happens because people are willing to pay ridiculous fees for memorabilia and tickets just to feel connected to the victories of the athletes they cheer. No one pays to see a good effort, they demand victory and if you can't win, you're toast no matter how gifted of an athlete you may be. So, just like many scholars cheat to get grades that lead to better jobs, companies cheat the balance sheet to make their stocks look more profitable, job seekers fudge their resumes to appear more trained and better educated then they actually are in order to compete for postions and salaries, so, too. do athletes cheat. I am not condoning or justifying it. I think it is sympomatic of the "winner" obsession that dominates western culture. If you aren't a champion, you are a loser. If you ain't getting paid, you're a bitch. Who cares about hard work and competency anymore? Those are such quaint and passe notions of a bygone era when hard work counted for something. It's ratings, album sales, job evaluations, points per game, a nation's material versus people value or one's willingness to breathe deep the vapors of the ass above you that matters. Until we change our priorities out here in the civilzed world, how can we ever expect anyone to just do the best they can do and be able to make a living doing it? This is the price we pay for hyper-competitiveness and every single one of us share the blame in creating this culture of cheating.
Right now, I have many, many opportunities before me. I am doing something completely out of character and against many previous protestations... mornings at a country station. Yup! Dave's the morning guy for a country station in the south. I'm really just doing it as a favor for the station owners until they can bring on someone fulltime but it is indeed strange to wake every morning at 3:30 to get geared up for the "Dixie Breakfast Table." Yeah, I know.
The nice thing about this gig is that allows me to help out a charity that is near and dear to my heart,
http://www.projectrwanda.org . Read about it. It's pretty amazing. Coffee and bicycles? Now how could I say no to being their media director? I am also doing some preliminary consulting for a coffee chain and the talk network I wrote about earlier so, as you can imagine, life is quite hectic but I'm loving every minute of it.
The girls are well and staying busy. Abi and Elea start back to school next month and Abi is almost finished with her 240 country reports. If you haven't checked out her project lately, go the our website,
http://www.paxgaea.com . Pen's consulting the shirt company that she used to work at before we left for Mexico. The book is still out there making the rounds to the publishing houses with lots of interest but no commitments thus far.
Hope your summer is progressing well. More updates soon.
Labels: coffee, doping scandal, Pax Gaea, Project Rwanda, radio, Tour De France
After nearly six months of silence, I felt it was time to once again start posting as so much has transpired since my last entry.
We left Patzcuaro in April and slowly worked our way north to Wyoming and a slow arc through the Black Hills of South Dakota before heading east to North Carolina.
It was a great chance to catch up with friends and family we haven't seen in some time and to spend a few weeks with Pen's mom in Hertford, NC. We moved to Nags Head, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, in early June where we now live four blocks from the beach and two miles from where Orville and Wilber Wright lauched their first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Pen resumed her graphics consulting business with a former client and I returned to radio where I am now the morning host on a heritage country station for one of my clients. I've done this to give them a chance to recruit a permanent morning host/PD. It's not a bad way to spend the summer as I anticipate they will hire someone before the start of the Fall ratings period.
Way too many irons in the fire. We are awaiting the close of a deal for our novel,
Thatcher: The Unauthorized Biography of Blackbeard The Pirate, which has been shopped as a trilogy. Our agent feels confident that the first novel will be on the shelves by next summer.
In the meantime I am consulting a burgeoning talk network which is beta testing the format in a single market with the intention of fleshing out the network at the first of the year. I am talking to a few venture capitalists about a promising business venture and lending my media expertise for a charity that is trying to develop the Rwandan coffee industry.
We've much to do and so little time to do it in.
Hopefully, I can return to more active blogging over the next few weeks as I analyze domestic and global political issues that impact human rights.
Pax Gaea is very much alive and with much to share in the coming weeks.
Labels: human rights, Nags Head, Outer Banks, Pax Gaea, radio, Thatcher
