Wikibama!!

This is an article taken from The New York Times Week In Review section this week. I think this article is great and I am posting it here.

The Wiki-Way to the Nomination
by Noam Cohen


Barack Obama is the victor, and the Internet is taking the bows.

Commenting on the Democratic presidential primary campaign, the blogger Andrew Sullivan praised Mr. Obama’s success in mastering “Facebook politics.” Roger Cohen, writing online in The New York Times, likened the rapid success of Mr. Obama to that of a “classic Internet startup.” And The Atlantic Monthly, in a much discussed article titled “HisSpace,” described what Mr. Obama’s impressive online fund-raising apparatus owes to the enhanced social networking of sites like MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.

Mr. Obama is hardly alone in making use of the Web (remember Howard Dean in 2004). What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As he described it to a Time magazine reporter last week, “We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and what I think we did well was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and to put some serious resources into it.”

Consider the video “Yes We Can,” Mr. Obama’s words set to music by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, which has been viewed more than 18 million times online, first at YouTube, and now at the Obama campaign’s portal, my.barackobama.com. And there is also the ubiquitous poster of Mr. Obama (with the captions “Progress” and “Hope”) created by the street artist Shepard Fairey and later incorporated into the campaign and sold on its Web site.

Mr. Fairey posted the image (inspired by the famous photograph of Che Guevara) on his own site early in the primaries, and said in an interview that “the official campaign had been hit up so many times, they asked, ‘Can we get you to do an official thing?’ ”

The receptiveness of the Obama campaign to such bottom-up influences raises a question: might the candidate actually model his approach to politics on the informal communal spirit the Internet encourages?

It is not easy to say, because Mr. Obama draws on a range of influences, not the least of which is the high rhetorical tradition of American politics. As Garry Wills recently suggested in The New York Review of Books, Mr. Obama’s characterization of himself as an “imperfect candidate” draws on Lincoln’s idea “that the preamble’s call for ‘a more perfect union’ initiated a project, to make the Constitution a means for its own transcendence.”

But at the same time, Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer — the collaborative, decentralized principles behind Net projects like Wikipedia and the “free and open-source software” movement. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” — were ones he said “merged perfectly” with the Internet. And they may well be the qualities that make him the first real “wiki-candidate.”

Wikipedia is the influential online encyclopedia that is in a constant state of revision, thanks to its tens of thousands of contributors around the world. There is no single “editor,” no presiding panel of experts for its 2.4 million articles in English. Indeed, anyone can pick up an article and make changes immediately (“wiki-wiki” is Hawaiian for fast).

Similarly, open-source software is created by groups working on “patches,” as programmers call them. Anyone can contribute, and the most useful ideas thrive. A result has been successes like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Internet browser.

Yochai Benkler, a Harvard law professor whose book “The Wealth of Networks” is a manifesto for online collaboration, points out a crucial difference between Mr. Obama’s approach to attracting supporters and that of his chief rivals. “On the McCain and Clinton Web sites, there is a transactional screen,” Mr. Benkler said. “It is just about the money. Donate, then we can build the relationship. In Obama’s it’s inverted: build the relationship and then donate.”

For this reason there are thousands of people working across the Internet to build enthusiasm for the campaign, some of it even gently mocking, like Barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com, a site listing the many examples of Mr. Obama’s magical compassion. (“Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet”; “Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate.”)

For his part, Mr. Obama is quick to take himself out of the narrative, even as he promises to remake Washington. This isn’t simply modesty. It reflects the utopian, community-building vision central to the Internet. Wikipedia’s unpaid collaborators, for example, hope to “distribute a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in their own language,” says the site’s mastermind, Jimmy Wales. So too the thousands of programmers in the open-source world intend not just to develop a free operating system, but vanquish Microsoft.

In this scheme, Mr. Obama’s role, at least in the rhetoric, is less leader than facilitator, a conduit for decentralized collaboration as described by James Surowiecki in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds.” “The ethos of the Net is fundamentally respectful of and invested in the idea of collective wisdom, and in some sense is hostile to the idea that power and authority should belong to a select few,” Mr. Surowiecki wrote.

This is not to say that open projects always produce the best results. Thousands of ordinary people having their say can lead to dubious outcomes. And in politics, particularly at the presidential level, where decisions affect the lives of millions, the risks can be great.

For a candidate, there is always the danger of “making yourself vulnerable” by “giving participants control of chunks of the enterprise,” Mr. Benkler said. Mr. Obama has to walk a careful line. It’s one thing to help popularize a campaign, quite another to shape policy. And Mr. Obama’s team has been as adamant as any about staying on message.

To some extent, however, Mr. Obama has invited policy ideas from outsiders. Deb Barry, an Obama supporter in New Hampshire, said she was impressed that the organization she belongs to, Educators for Obama, had a chance to speak with his education-policy staff members before the primary there. “I went into that conference call, kind of with the impression that the purpose was for us to ask questions,” she said. In fact, “they were picking our brains. They had specific questions they wanted to ask us, and were seeing how we felt about what had already come out from the campaign.”

Not that Ms. Barry expects to play a direct role in shaping government policy. “There is a huge limitation about how much contact someone like me can have with the big decision makers,” she said, but a critical first step is reaching out: “Not just reaching out to experts, with big titles and degrees after his name, but people with experience.”

Other online activists are more skeptical about the openness to outsiders. “The Obama campaign is still very much a top-bottom operation,” Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, of the influential DailyKos Web site, wrote in an e-mail message. “They’ve made it very easy for people to hop on the bandwagon, but those in the back of that wagon still get no say in where the campaign is going.”

Yes, someone is driving the bandwagon, even if he constantly plays down his role — describing himself as a Rorshach image on whom others project. Even Wikipedia has administrators who monitor the work there, and open-source projects have their “leaders,” who keep them on course.

In truth, there is no such thing as purely collective decision making. As Mr. Surowiecki summed it up in his book: “It has historically been unusual for change to bubble up from below on its own. So it is, in fact, more likely that someone will take it on himself to champion the idea of collective wisdom, and in that way create the conditions that allow it to flourish. This is paradoxical, but no more so than the fact that an individual, not a crowd, wrote ‘The Wisdom of Crowds.’ ”

Who Wants To Go To Jail? Who Wants To Go To Jail?

So now my New York City has come up with a new plan. Brilliant, brilliant plan. The police are now leaving briefcases and bags out with wallets in them, containing cash and credit cards, in order to entrap would-be thieves. But in fact, innocent people who have picked up the bags to try to bring them to the authorities are being charged with robbery or whatever charges come with taking a bag sitting there all alone. How insanely ridiculous is that? I swear I have heard on the news these terrible stories of citizens trying to do the right thing getting brought up on false charges.

Now in Florida, the police have a similar entrapment sting going on but with cars instead of bags. This is a whole other tier of robbery, as a bystander cannot drive a "wayward" car to the local police station to return it to its rightful owner. And what the police do is rig the cars so that the would-be thieves, once confirmed they are trying to steal the car, get locked in the car and the engine shuts down and they cannot escape. The police monitoring the car nearby come out and arrest the thieves. Now this I feel is also entrapment, but stealing a car and picking up a handbag are two totally different things. Especially when trying to steal a car cannot be misconstrued as anything else. And the lines of returning a bag and stealing it can be totally blurred.

Now this also brings into play the campaign that New York City has launched about reporting bags left alone in public places. So how does this all tie in together? I have no idea, but I foresee disaster. Or at the very least, citizens like me (insert snickering here) reporting each and every bag we see, annoying the police, as we should rightly do so for this inane sting they have set up. Think about it. It's quite comical....

Fool-iani

New York, New York....If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere....

Except Giuliani didn't really make it here. Yes, he rose from lawyer to DA, US Attorney to Mayor of New York City, but he is trying to rest his laurels for presidential office only on the fact that he was mayor of New York City. But not really ever a popular one. And the funny thing is, his politics aren't all that bad, but he's a real SLIME BAG. He cheated on his wife, his son is estranged, his choice in police chiefs left much to be desired, in Kerik and Kelly. He has this way about him of being horribly offended if you question him on anything. I have heard the saying that when Giuliani talks about his presidential bid, two things come out of his mouth: a lie and 9/11.

And about 9/11. What the hell is his problem? He acts like he single handedly brought New York City back from the brink of destruction. Hell ANYONE that would have been mayor of New York would have looked good by crying on camera, showing solidarity to the firemen (who by the way don't like Giuliani) and policemen, meeting with victim's families.... He was damn lucky that something of this magnitude happened toward the end of his term, which happened to have overshadowed the problems he was having with minorities clashing with the police at the time. He never did anything to alleviate the problem. He just stood on his soapbox, smug, basically saying that the police had every right to do every misdeed they did to the minorities of the city because they were the police and there was too much crime here. I think the only crime was letting that sleazebag stay in office after the shooting of Amadu Diallo. Or the vicious beating of Abner Louima. Both of which the city's residents were unsatisfied with the outcome of the punishment for the officers.

And now it has come to light that he billed small city offices for the security he used to go out to the Hamptons to meet with his mistress. His Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota tried to assert that other mayors of the city had done so, and when it was brought back to him that they did not, he backtracked on his statement, thus embarrassing Giuliani and his camp. And of course Giuliani has done his predictable, usual M.O.: he's denying, double-talking and once again taking the offensive stance that someone should even have the audacity to look into his past dealings.

And this right on the heels of his association with Bernard Kerik.

Now I think if Giuliani were smart, he would have used his term as New York mayor as a sort of model as to how people would react to him. And he hasn't. But then again, men like him don't think that people see him in a negative light at all. He seems to only focus on what he wants to about himself and nothing else. And he expects the rest of the world to do the same. This is hardly the kind of man I want in office as President of The United States. Far be it from me to rest this decision based solely on a man's personality, but he just gets under my skin. And I'm bleeding from trying to scratch out Bush....

UGH.....

I can't believe that my home state, my HOME STATE is out of control insane!! I have been wanting leave New York for a while now, and it seems the time is right, seeing as the outlandish craziness here is reaching new heights (or depths if you want to look at it that way) and driving the sane folk away....

First off, lets talk about Elliot Spitzer, or as I like to call him, damn fool that can't shut the hell up for two seconds to actually get any kind of task or job done and won't even compromise on issues because he needs to have his way. But let's call him The Howler for short. So between this whole ridiculous argument about Bruno's use of the state helicopter, not having the state's education budget released (now here it is two months after school has started) and his not so cool plan for having illegal immigrants get driver's licenses, I am ready to call for his swift and final termination. Granted, we need a LOT more Democrats with his kind of energy (sans the bullish brattiness), but he has turned out to be a real pain in the ass. At this point in the game, everything with him is an argument. Everything. And people are sick of him. He really doesn't seem to be getting much more done than his predecessor--he who cannot have his named mentioned for the sliver of a chance he may come back and eat our young and bring pestilence and plague. The Howler swore up and down thewre'd be change from day one, and the fool that I am that falls in love too easily believed him. And my heart has been broken. And now I'm pissed.

Now let's turn to the plight of the NYC cab drivers, if plight is a word you would like to use. Not me. Here is another case of people bitching and moaning, and it seems that here in New York, there is a lot of bitching to get your way. So the cab drivers are upset about the TLC having mandated credit card machines and GPS units installed into every car. Somehow this has thrown the cabbies up at arms. Let me tell you my take on it. First, the cabbies state that they will lose money if people use credit cards. I can't possibly foresee HOW that could happen. No, what I think is going on here is that the cabbies for years had probably been skimming the cash. You can't skim off credit cards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't using credit cards bring down the crime rate of thieves mugging cabbies for cash?

And the GPS units, they say, is an invasion of privacy. Oh really? So what job do you know, pray tell, that has any modicum of privacy? In fact, what aspect of life here in America has any iota of privacy? Again, no. What I think is that there are those who may be involved in illegal activities (and by illegal activities I mean terrorist activities) that can now be tracked. So in a sense, yes, that may so be an invasion of privacy, but in wartime, there is no privacy for potential enemies. Sorry. That's just the way it works for the safety of the greater good.

And the other thing is how the cabbies are protesting that the city has no right to tell them what to do with their cars. WHAT?!?! Are they seriously for real? In order to get a medallion, you have to pay FEES to the TLC, or Taxi and Limousine Commission. The TLC is who regulates the fares. Cabbies have to register their cars with the TLC. So what the HELL are the cabbies talking about? These people have messed around and lost their minds.

And this is only part of the mess I am neck deep in here in New York....

O.J. Gives Me Heartburn....

Wow.

So it's all come down to this. Orenthal James Simpson going to jail not for the murders of two people which we all know he did, but for the harlequin-esque robbery he committed in Las Vegas this month. And this after the circus show surrounding his supposedly fictitious book "If I Did It", of which I can't believe that someone actually published and is peddling this filth to the masses. (I won't even get into the morons that I think would buy the book...on tape because obviously retarded cretins like that can't possibly read.)

But wait, it gets better. I have recently found out that because of his loss in the civil suit to the Brown family, all the proceeds of the book go to the family. So the Brown family is making the money off the book that this idiot wrote about his crime.

Am I taking crazy pills?!?!

Is it normal for a family to financially profit off the untimely death of a loved one? Since when has it become that MONEY has substituted for justice? So instead of seeking an eye for an eye, we have come up with a "Civil Suit". Oh yes kids, we don't care to avenge the death of a loved one anymore, nor do we care to fight to get a violent offender off the street to keep them from committing the same or other crimes. No, we just seek to get money. Get paid, as it were. Because after all, doesn't the money make you feel better, assuage your grief, quell your tears? I mean, getting enough money will bring the loved one back from the dead, no?

So there we had it, the Brown family all broken up on camera, shrieking and crying over the slaying of their beloved Nicole. They vowed to make O.J. pay for his crime. And pay he is. Not with his time and freedom spent behind bars, but with money. And it seems to me a little too convenient that since he was broke after paying Johnny Cochran all his legal fees, he would hatch a scheme to make money the only way he knew how: sensationally. And then the vultures swooped in....the Browns, as we call them.

Now, I am not fooled in the least about this situation. This is not a story of an "American" tragedy, and we should pour our hearts out to the grieving families. Oh no. This is the story of lust and greed. Lust on the part of O.J.'s jealousy of his former wife dating around, and the greed of the Brown family in which they dumped the memory of Nicole for money. And shamefully don't even care that the money they are getting is off of peddled smut, fashioned from the blood and bones of the slain daughter and sister they once had. No, as long as they get what they deserve...

It's enough to make me bang my head on the desk. Again.

So what next? Will O.J. somehow, superhumanly rise above the law yet once again? Will he somehow be set free to once again commit other crimes--old as that mofo is--until we realise what a low-brow, oafish, criminally insane dolt he really is? Or will his charges stick? Will he go to jail and serve a sentence behind bars with all the other dregs of society? In light of my experience in this lifetime, fools usually slip through the snares of life that the rest of us seem to catch ourselves in.

More of the Same?

Hello kiddies - Baby Bear is back after a long hiatus. However, I could not stay silent forever you know. So today I am here to talk about Beyonce. Oh yes, that vixen songstress who is undoubtedly getting many scores of young ladies in trouble with her "Irreplaceable" song. Let's delve in, shall we?

So as many of you know the song is about her breaking up with a guy that's been cheating on her. And she's throwing him out. So the lyrics of this song are what she is saying to him as she's putting him out and calling a cab. Now, first off, she talks about how she had bought him a car and he was driving around town in this car she purchased for him. By my guess, it doesn't sound like she had been with him for very long in the first place, yet she bought the cheating asshole a car. Now I have always told women that I know that you know straight off the bat if a guy is a slime. You choose YOURSELF whether to go with your gut instinct or to ignore it. Obviously in this scenario, not only did she ignore it, but chose to buy him a car thinking that would get him to love her more. Uh, no. Sorry. He just uses the free car to shuttle around his flings. This is not good for young girls to be listening to. It's bad enough for them to see the video images of Beyonce scantily clad dancing pretending to be a strong woman - what strong women do you know that walk around with their tits and ass hanging out all over the place?

Now the real beef I have with this song is when she states that she can replace this guy "in a minute". And in fact, he's on his way over to see her as she's putting the cheating boyfriend out. OK. Now, if she's putting this idiot out after what seems like a short while, she goes and replaces him with another guy that OBVIOUSLY she hasn't known that long!! So what is she doing? Replacing one asshole with another one? Showing that she can't spend time alone because GOD FORBID a woman be without a man for a while and work on getting herself together and realise that she needs to take time to meet a nice, decent guy. Or at least don't patrol the bars and clubs looking for Mr. Right. Again, young women are getting the message that guys (as well as women) are interchangeable, all you need is a warm body hanging off your arm and everything will be OK.

Ladies, let me tell you something: There is no woman in the HISTORY of women that likes men more than I do. I swear to God, men consume almost every one of my thoughts. And there's nothing wrong with that. But you have to understand one thing: men are incredibly STUPID. I'm not saying that to be mean or hurtful, but to lower yourself to their base level in order to get them is even more stupid. To tell a man that you can replace him in a minute is saying that you are a piece of ass and will offer it up to the next Neanderthal that comes down the pike. To not make a man appreciate the VALUE you offer other than your body is stupid. Thus, this song is just dumbing down our young women. We women are supposed to kick a man in the butt to get him to do something other than grunt, scratch, fight and fuck. We are supposed to be put together ourselves because, after all, we are mothers and have to teach the young how to act and survive in society. I can't imagine the mothers of these asshole men are proud of what they have become. So I realise that though I love these hairy bastards that are strong, smell good, muscle ripped, not-so-soft and pretty, I have to be SMARTER than them. And it's really not that hard. Just think above the base level and you'll be more than fine.

So ultimately what this song seems to fail to understand is that she may be putting out the loser boyfriend and she's all empowered for the moment, but she will be singing the same tune again because it doesn't seem like she knows how to find a good man. And that's why women seem to be so unhappy with men a lot these days - they don't know how to break out of their own vicious cycles.

New York's Finest?

The New York City Police Department has reached all kinds of lows in the past fifteen years, however, the lowest they have gotten is $25,000 per year. As in the starting salary of rookie police officers. Yes, that's right. The starting salary of people that are supposed to fight crime and protect the city in times of strife are only making $25K to start. It has come to light that the Department of Parks and Recreation is looking to hire three new puppeteers with a starting salary of between roughly $32K and $50K with complete benefits and union status. And what has the city done to try to supplement the low salary of starting rookies? Offer them a low interest credit card "to make ends meet". Is this the best they can do?!?! Put these poor cadets into DEBT?

**Parks spokesman Warner Johnston called the puppet job "a very skilled position."

"It's not just someone with his hand up a puppet," he said. "It's someone who has to create and maintain the marionette. It's an artisan position."

The new puppeteer will work at the Marionette Theater in Central Park - and also make rounds in the "PuppetMobile," doing performances in city parks and recreation centers. [NY Post, 13 March 2007]**

Oh my fucking god - this one is so wide open I CAN'T crack on it... but I can get $50K per year plus benefits for putting my hand up a puppet's ass? What's Condoleeza doing after she's out of office?

And it makes me wonder - where is all the money from my parking tickets going? What about the unusually high city taxes I pay? Lottery tickets? Parking meters? I wonder because if it's not going to pay the cops, it sure as hell isn't going to fix the potholes in the streets, repair busted parking meters that people get ticketed on anyway, more police video cameras on the streets (I will get into Big Brother in a later post), beefing up the 311 hotline (it STINKS Bloomberg), cleaner streets in Manhattan, more available parking, etc., etc. It leads me to believe that some fat bastard is getting fatter off of MY tax dollars!! And that pisses me off. This is the most expensive city to live in the country and we can't fix a fucking POTHOLE? Here Bloomberg, I have a suggestion for you. How about the new recruits can make overtime by filling in potholes on weekends? Or how about we give the beat cops brooms so they can sweep while on patrol? Oh I know, how about when on beat, we give them quarters to watch our cars for half an hour? Yeah, then they'll really rack it in and supplement that income, and not only that, will always have change for laundry!! Righteous!!

It sickens me the kind of financial management we have here in the city. I just CAN'T hear officials bitch anymore about how the city is broke - because we're NOT. Someone is skimming that money into his or her own pocket. And I can't wait for the day that this salary gets so out of control, there will be a strike by officers - then New York will REALLY know the meaning of hell...

And I just have to put in here that I do NOT read the NY Post - I don't even line the catbox with it. NY1 (another example of "quality" journalism) pointed it out this morning in their "In the Papers" segment. Don't laugh. I like NY1 to listen to when I get ready for work in the morning. I mean, how else do I get my daily dose of violence, carneage, heartbreak, murder, rape and the fluff story?

Hot Tip

I just wanted to share my new recent passion - a question and answer site called Yahoo! Answers. I swear I have been so into that site!! What it is is a site in which you create a profile and then you go answer posted questions by the Y!A community and you can post questions yourself. As you interact with the site, you gain points which as you earn, get you to higher and higher levels within the site in which you get greater access to play around. In the higher levels you can rate questions and answers and participate more frequently. I believe they keep your participation limited in the lower levels because the darn thing is so addictive!! The questions are about everything you can think of - from computing and gaming and downloading to pets to romance to automotive queries. Personally, I tend to gravitate toward the moire personal questions. And the asker of the question can rate who has given the best answer and best answers give you about 10 points. They even link to your email so you can be notified when your questions are answered - and they tend to get answered pretty quickly - and also when you have received a best answer rating. Y!A has made me look forward to logging into my email everyday. Not only is it cool to see how many points you can get, but you also get that warm and fuzzy feeling when someone appreciates the time you pout into answering their questions. And that, my friend, is better than chocolate in my book!!

Just A Thought

Today I am cranky. I am in the mood for letting something out...

On the issue of Americans who are adamantly against gay people and gay marriage, let's be real for a second. What exactly is the problem? Because I don't buy the "it's against the bible" garbage because your hypocritical selves are doing so many other things that go against the doctrine of the bible. Nor does your argument that they are destroying society hold any water either. Gays aren't destroying society, WE ALL are destroying society. Perpetual hatred and torment of gays isn't making this a place where everyone is free. Period. If you want to call America free, then goddamnit, let people, let ALL people be free. Freedom isn't about your free choice to discriminate against whomever you choose - and I think people have fundamentally made that mistake here in the U.S. Freedom is free to be who you are, and if you can't deal with other people, then you are FREE TO GO. Now, personally I wouldn't want anyone to leave the country over such a matter as not being able to expand your horizons and opening your mind. It is sad that people are so unwilling to do so, and I know it's because they are told not to - just following some agenda that someone else is telling them. But I digress.

But what strikes me about all this is that I don't think that homophobes have anything substantially wrong with homosexuality other than their OWN shortcomings. Gays are a scapegoate for those that are shitty, insecure, unhappy people who feel they need someone to look down upon and tell themselves when they look in the mirror, "I am a little pissant, judgemental, approval whore but at least I'm not gay!!" And that is what gets them to step out of their doors and face the world. How pathetic homophobes are. They have some kind of defect about themselves they just can't get over so they try to put their hatred on gays rather than themselves. Because when you hate yourself, there is not much to live for.

So why don't you stop hating on gays and try working on yourselves - we'd all be better off for it.

Is Barack Obama Black Enough?

Uhhh....what the hell is that supposed to mean? Really, what the HELL is that trying to convey? What, is there a way that one acts to be "black"? Are there degrees of being black? And if so, why would he need to be MORE black in a racist country against blacks?

Oh I get it, so they figure that Obama will CERTAINLY get the black votes, so now they are trying to turn blacks against him by saying that he's not black enough, playing on black people's views of self identity. I see. So this is what it comes down to now. Absolutely NO trace of political value or affiliation, but rather Obama not being black enough and Hillary being a woman. I guess the Republican machine has tried to knock their political standpoints but know they won't win on that point because the country is sick of Republican bullshit, so they once again attack the candidates by something they cannot help about themselves, nor should it have anything to do with politics.

You know, the only thing that I like about the Republicans is that they give me so much to write about...

Fuckers.