McCunications

A stroll through computer history

2009-03-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

The best way to visit the Computer History Museum is with someone who worked on early computers. That's what I did last week when my favorite uncle, Jordan Spofford, and my Aunt Bev were in town for a few days.

I enjoyed seeing the Apple computer prototype, but my uncle (at left) got most excited about seeing the Cray computer and a reproduction of the Babbage Engine, the first automatic computing machine. I'd never heard of the Babbage before, but he knew all about it.

My uncle worked at Western Electric in Massachusetts in the early days of computing. Here's a photo of him testing the wiring in the D2 computer bay at Western Electric. (He said Hughes Aircraft made the test equipment they used back then.)

This pic shows my uncle and me, reflected in the glass covering over the wiring of the Cray computer.

Tags: computers, Cray, Apple, Babbage

Unexpected guest

2009-03-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

Alzheimer's came to my door last night, and I let her in.

She was wearing pink flowered pajamas topped by a green V-neck sweater. She was standing at the end of my driveway, after ringing the doorbell at 1:30 a.m. From a distance, her blondish page boy hair reminded me of a friend.

"Pat?" I asked from the doorway.

"No," the woman replied, turning toward me, but remaining at the end of the drive. I walked out to meet her, tugging my bathrobe close against the cold.

She was frail, much shorter than my friend Pat, maybe five-foot-two. She said she'd been driving a friend home and had gotten confused. Her car had run out of gas and she'd been walking for a while around trying to find her way home.

I said we'd figure it out and led her inside. She said her feet were cold. I looked down and saw she was barefoot. I sat her down in the family room and went to get her a pair of socks -- a pair of thick, warm woolen ones. As she slowly tugged them on, I asked if her car was nearby. She didn't know. How about her address? She couldn't tell me. Anyone we could call to help? No answer. Her name? That she could tell me, so I looked her up in the phone book and found she lived just three blocks away.

My husband and I took her out to the car and drove a few blocks, then started looking for her address. She gave no sign of recognition, no "That's my house!" I got out with a flashlight so I could read the house numbers. According to the phone book, this was her house. There was one light on inside. I tried the door. Locked. I rang the bell. No response. A car parked on the street directly in front of the house was also locked.

I went back to the car. She was still sitting quietly in the back seat. What next?

"I think we should take her to the emergency room," my husband said. It was either that or call the police.

The emergency area was quiet. I asked her to take a seat in the waiting area while I talked to the admittance clerk, who had a hard time figuring out our relationship.

"No, I'm not related," I told him. "I think she lives in my neighborhood, but never met her until she rang my doorbell about half an hour ago."

Another young man -- a nurse, a doctor? -- came out and asked her some questions. Did she know what day of the week it was? Could she give him the name of a family member to call? Did she know what year it was? No, no and no.

"How old are you?" the young man asked.

"Umm ... 28?" she responded.

"I don't think so," he said. "I think we need to admit you."

She followed him without protest into the hospital, and my husband and I drove home.

Journalism as remix?

2009-03-12T18:05:00.001-07:00

Is it art ... or appropriation? Creativity or theft?

Take a look at the web's latest phenom, Kutiman, who makes music videos by mashing up and remixing short clips of other people's YouTube videos.

Daniel Sinker, a member of the journalism faculty at Columbia College in Chicago, comes down on the side of art. So do I.

In a recent Huffington Post piece, Sinker said, "If your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we'd go about suing someone who did this' ... instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it's probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page."

Perhaps the Associated Press might want to consider taking that advice. Instead of acting like RIAA gestapo and suing Shepard Fairey for "copying" an AP photographer's campaign photo for his now-iconic Obama "Hope" poster, the AP might want to consider adopting similar techniques instead. Instead of regarding Fairey's poster as "a threat to journalism," the AP might want to lighten up and bask in the glow. After all, I doubt anyone would remember that photographer's name, or that photo, if it weren't for Fairey's poster.

I think Kutiman's music ... video ... whatever you want to call it ... is seriously cool and creative. But I also like Sinker's larger point ... that musicians and artists aren't the only ones who can take advantage of the proliferation of raw material on the web. He says journalists should be tapping into that mother lode of material too, instead of viewing the web as a threat.

Sinker advises journalists to "Be like Kutiman: use the millions of blog entries, photos, tweets, and videos that find themselves on the web every day to build something new."

See Daniel Sinker's "Where is Our Orchestra? What Journalism Can Learn From the Mind-Blowing Remixes of Kutiman" on Huffington Post
YouTube remixer Kutiman may be the best mashup artist yet -- on Gawker's Things We Actually Like
AP, artist feud over famous Obama poster, on USA Today
tags: music, web, youtube, mashup, journalism

iPhone envy

2009-02-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

Just got a call from my hubby. He's in downtown SF and apparently his car got towed. Bummer!

What next? Is there a BART station nearby? How do you find if your vehicle's been towed ... or stolen? And how do you get it back?

It just took me one Google search and a couple of clicks to find out. Called the SFPD number listed ... yup, it was towed. Got the details, called him back, told him where to go (so to speak).

But I couldn't help thinking ... if he'd had an iPhone, he could have sorted it out without my help.

Yes, I want one! I'll be so glad when my current phone contract expires!

Tags: iPhone, Google, SFPD, towed

Deck Chairs

2009-02-24T23:37:00.001-08:00

Oh, no ... say it isn't so! My favorite local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is on the ropes.

According to the Hearst Corporation, the Chron lost $50 million last year, and if the company can't make major cutbacks "within weeks ... it will be forced to sell or close the newspaper."

Of course, I guess I should have seen it coming. After all, plenty of other newspapers are falling by the wayside ... most recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Register, Journal Register chain and the Tucson Citizen. And then the Chronicle's management appears to have wasted the past 6-12 months fiddling with fonts and negotiating a 15-year contract for a new printing plant ... otherwise known as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Even if the Chronicle survives, it will be in a significantly reduced form with a decimated reporting staff. Either way, I will miss my daily dose of Chron.

Linking and sharing

2009-02-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

As I work on my computer and listen to music on songza.com, I take a moment to read an LA Times article on musician J.J. Cale. Apparently he's been a source of inspiration for a number of well-known rock 'n' rollers, including Eric Clapton ... but here's what I'm wondering: Why doesn't the LA Times include a link to one of his songs along with the article? Seems like a pretty simple and pretty obvious thing to do ... if they want to make their website more useful.

And it's not like there aren't plenty of links available ... they're just a Google search away, after all. Really, would it be that hard to include a link to the guy's web site?

If newspapers want to compete online, they've got to pay attention this kind of stuff. It's not just about "telling" anymore ... it's also about linking and sharing.

P.S. Here's one more link to a 2004 NPR interview with Cale.

A Grandin suprise

2009-02-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Reading a Philly Inquirer article about Temple Grandin this morning reminded me of my own favorite Temple Grandin story.

Grandin, who is autistic, is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and noted livestock industry consultant. She is also the author of several books on livestock handling, animal welfare and autism, and an autism advocate. I first met Grandin in the mid-'80s, when she was beginning to become known in the livestock industry.

It was the summer of 1987, as I recall, and I working at the Livestock Industry Congress, an annual conference put on by my employer, Livestock Marketing Association. I'd helped develop the conference program and recruited most of the speakers, including Temple Grandin, who was scheduled to speak on livestock handling, and Ellen Haas, then executive director of Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, representing consumer concerns.

It was an ambitious program for its target audience of leaders in the livestock and meat industry, most of whom had little awareness of (or interest in) the budding animal welfare and consumer movements.

The late Orville Sweet, then president of the National Pork Producers Association, opened the program by bringing out two big cartons full of postcards proclaiming bacon and eggs as the "breakfast of cruelty." The postcards, all sent to the NPPA, were part of a campaign against factory farming organized by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). PETA had also helped organize the animal rights protest that was going on outside the conference hall that morning.

Haas and Grandin were up next, with Haas speaking first. She was interrupted almost immediately by an animal rights protester who marched up to the stage, shouting, and took over the microphone. After a couple minutes, someone thought to turn off the microphone, and an security guard asked the protester to leave. She did, and Haas resumed her talk.

Then it was Grandin's turn to speak. Instead of stepping up to the microphone, she strode over to the cartons of postcards, still sitting at the side of the stage, grabbed one and upended it while turning toward the audience. Postcards spewed in an arc across the stage, some showering over the edge to land at the feet of the people in the front row. No one moved. All eyes were on Grandin, astonished, wondering what she'd do next.

What she did was proceed to tell the group, in no uncertain terms, that they needed to clean up their act when it came to livestock handling and production -- or they could expect to see a lot more animal rights protests. I like to think that speech helped launch her career.

Afterewards, some conference attendees told me they thought we'd choreographed the whole thing just to get their attention. I didn't need to choreograph it ... not with Grandin as a speaker.

Now, Grandin's story is headed for a larger stage. HBO is making a movie about her, starring one of my favorite actresses, Claire Danes. I can't wait.

Tags: Temple Grandin, animal welfare, livestock industry, HBO, LMA

Teacher's nightmare

2009-01-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

I'm having that dream again, the one where I'm rushing around campus after my morning class, talking to students and colleagues and such, when I realize I've totally forgotten about my second class, the one that's at noon.

Of course, it's mid-afternoon now so it's too late. And I realize I've stood up that whole class of students not just once but twice ... because it's my second day of classes, and I realize I forgot them on the first day of classes too. (What happened to my iCal alarm?)

I look around for a place to set down my bookbag and laptop so I can email my forgotten students to apologize. In this class, we are supposed to produce a play, and I fret that we are now so far behind schedule that we'll never catch up. Worry, worry.

Too many people, no place for me to sit. I wander the halls, wondering if I should fess up to my department head, or just to my students. Wait a minute ... maybe my students have already complained to my department about my absence ... why, of course, they must have! I head back to the office. But why didn't one of them email me? Worry, worry.

Then I wake up. And I realize four things: 1) My second class doesn't start until tomorrow; 2) my first class is fully online and has no on-campus meetings; 3) I do not teach in the theater department or produce plays; and 4) I've had this dream before. Whoa!

Yes, it is the teacher's nightmare ... variation #32, I think ... and I am glad to be awake and over it. Thank goodness tomorrow is another day.

2009-01-21T13:37:00.001-08:00

We all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw ...

... get on that helicopter and fly away.

He's lucky it was a polite group and he didn't get a more appropriate farewell salute.

Words fail

2009-01-20T12:22:00.000-08:00

Watching the inauguration with friends, I am ...

Proud

Relieved

Teary-eyed

Heartened

Grinning

Glad

Hopeful

It was a very good year...for buzzwords

2008-12-21T11:01:00.001-08:00

"Picking out political buzzwords from 2008 is like shooting moose in a pigpen," say Mark Leibovich and Grant Barrett, authors of The Buzzwords of 2008.

They note, for example, that "the lifespan of Hillary Clinton’s campaign 'meta-narrative' could be charted entirely in buzzwords and catch-phrases — 'inevitability' to 'Clinton fatigue' to 'Obamamania' to 'he can’t win' to 'team of rivals.'

What really makes this New York Times piece work are the illustrations -- the font and graphics created by Jessica Hische. They're fabulous.

My favorites: Greyjing, recessionista, edupunk, Plutoid and TBTF ("Too Big To Fail," replete with cracks). Which ones do you like best?

Tags: nytimes, buzzwords, graphics, typeface, design, slang

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A new business model?

2008-12-16T12:20:00.001-08:00

Detroit’s big news as seen from a key design insider - SND Update

"It’s official: The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, will become the first major U.S. newspapers to cease seven-day home delivery."
- Hello to three-day delivery: The JOA will instead focus on Thursday and Friday delivery of both papers and Sunday delivery of the Free Press only. Those days are the most lucrative for advertising and have often been considered in the newspaper world as the “money” days for both sales and circulation.
- Clearly one of the biggest design challenges is to try to continue serving current single copy readers and perhaps even improve their experiences, while also appealing to long-time home delivery customers and trying to serve their needs.
- "We’ll have to look at ways to maximize reader connections through all existing and newly developing channels (ex: Kindle, iPhone, etc and whatever comes next). That is definitely part of our planning."
- Some critics have panned the process with IDEO, worrying that the design firm does not completely understand how to work with the news media.
- The influential designer Juan Antonio Giner of Innovation called it “the way to death” in a posting last week, and the Gannett Blog has been buzzing with rumors about IDEO’s role. But the leaders of the transformation defend the IDEO process.

tags: future of newspapers, future of news, online

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Prop 8 - the musical

2008-12-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet seen the video, Prop 8 - the Musical, starring Jack Black as Jesus...well, here's your chance.

What he said

2008-11-14T21:44:00.000-08:00

I'd heard about this commentary by Keith Olbermann on the passage of Prop. 8, but hadn't seen it until today. It's heartfelt and worth watching.

Get with the program

2008-11-12T14:32:00.001-08:00

Time for newspapers to get with the program? The video program? That's what journalism pioneer Michael Rosenblum said recently to the Society of Editors conference. Here are some excerpts on his presentation from a blog post by Dominic Ponsford on Press Gazette (U.K.) blog:

'News websites must embrace video or die' - Press Gazette

tags: video, future of news, business model
- “Any idiot can do this, making TV is not hard, it's not complicated, it's not difficult. The technology makes it incredibly simple.”
  
  And he said print publications “must have video” on their websites or else go out of business.
- “If you only have print or stills and your competitor has video your going to get eaten.”
- He said print journalists were danger of becoming as obselete as the New England whalers of the 19th century.
- “You are not in the newspaper business...When new technology like the internet comes along you can hide from it or you can embrace it.”
  
  He said: “Like the oilmen of New England you are already in the business but you have to remember the business you are in.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stand on the side of love

2008-11-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

Since the election, I have done a lot of thinking about the passage of Prop 8. I keep wondering how so many Californians could be more supportive of the rights of farm animals than of the rights of people. I keep wondering how people who have experienced discrimination could vote to inflict it upon others and enshrine discrimination in our constitution. I simply do not understand.

What I do know is that this is the next civil rights struggle. What I do know is that one day we will be as appalled by Prop 8 as we now are by the laws that forbade interracial marriage. I can only hope that day comes soon.

If, like me, you are looking for a way to express your support for the right of all individuals to marry the one they love, please consider attending one of the following Peninsula candlelight vigils on Monday, Nov. 10, from 5-6:30 p.m.:

* San Mateo corner of El Camino Real and Fifth Avenue (I'll be here)
* Belmont at El Camino Real and Ralston Avenue (CalTrain side)
* Redwood City corner of El Camino and Jefferson Ave.
* Palo Alto at the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero
* San Jose at S. Bascom and Hamilton Ave. (southeast corner, just west of 17)
* San Jose downtown at Metropolitan Community Church, 65 South 7th Street

Click here for the most up-to-date list of venues, and links to maps. Bring candles. Rainbow flags and banners from faith communities are also welcome.

How Unitarian-Universalists view the right to marry
Listen to the UU hymn, Standing on the Side of Love

Waiting

2008-11-04T21:27:00.000-08:00

The answer to the question we've all been asking: http://isobamapresident.com/

Election day impressions

2008-11-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the day on the front lines of the No on Prop. 8 campaign, greeting voters and handing out hand cards at a San Bruno polling station at a middle school.

(In case you're not a Californian, Prop. 8 would overturn the recent California Supreme Court decision allowing gays to wed.)

Here are my election day impressions:

We Prop. 8 volunteers got lots of "thumbs up" from voters and passing drivers. We could tell they were really glad to see us when they honked their horns or took both hands off the steering wheel to give us two "thumbs up."
We decided to "kill them with kindness." We smiled and wished everyone a wonderful day, even if they told us they were voting "yes" on 8. We even smiled and waved at drivers who stopped to yell abuse at us (yes, there were several of those).
I expected a majority of younger people would support us, but I was pleased to see how many older men and women also told us they were voting no on 8.
About two-thirds of the people we greeted said, "You've got my vote." About 20-25 percent avoided us, ignored us, or waved us off. About 5 percent were rude or abusive.
One man, already in line (and thus out of reach) when we got to the polling station around 7 a.m., stopped on his way out to tell us how happy he was to see us there. I thought he was going to hug me.
One middle-aged woman and her husband stopped to say she's been angry ever since she first heard about Prop. 8. Saying it was "unfair," said she'd been waiting to vote against it.
One guy drove up around noon on a motorcycle, thanked us for being there, and gave us some homemade rice krispie bars. They were good.
I helped several people maneuver into tight parallel parking spaces on the street outside the polling station. One of them, when I handed him the No on 8 hand card, told me he wasn't that thrilled with the idea of gay marriage, but since it was now law, he was going to vote no on Prop. 8.
Big domestic model pick-up trucks and SUVs usually indicated "Yes on 8" voters.
A surprising number of people (8-10) questioned our presence outside the polling place. Several times I had to tell someone that we had indeed checked with the precinct captain and we were well outside the 100-foot limit.
A sizable proportion of Yes on 8 voters seemed angry, some downright nasty.
Many Yes on 8 voters couldn't seem to just pass us by or wave us off; they had to stop and taunt us, saying "you're going to lose because we voted yes" or the like.
Several Yes on 8 voters stopped their vehicles in the middle of the street yell out their windows at us. Some just yelled "Yes on 8" at us. Some yelled, "You're gonna lose; you're going down." One woman told us to repent because we were going to hell. So it goes.
Our "No on 8" stickers were a hot item with middle-school students. We gave out all we had and wished we had more. A good sign for the future.

Campaign tinnitus?

2008-11-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here is New York Times columnist Gail Collins' theory about the voters who, at this late date, say they're still "undecided":

My theory is that whenever they hear someone start to discuss the issues, they cover their ears and make humming noises, the way my husband does when I say it is time to take a look at our 401(k)s.

Her Nov. 1 column is called Our Election Whopper.

For another sound of the campaign, check out "Don't Speak for Me, Sarah Palin: The Musical," a hoot of a video posted on the barakoblogger.com.

And if you want to hear a blast from the ugly side of America -- the side I dearly hope doesn't prevail this time around -- read some of the vicious comments appended to this KC Star editorial. In it, Yael T. Abouhalkah (you can imagine how well that name goes over) notes that Obama is "poised to become America's first black president" and suggests his opponents get used to the idea.

From the sound of these so-called "Midwest Voices," I'd say that's gonna take a while. Makes me glad I no longer live in Kansas City.

The power of Diigo

2008-10-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

I've been using Diigo, the online bookmarking tool that's available here as a Firefox extension, for a while now. I've mostly used it to bookmark interesting articles, blog posts and such that I find on the web.

What I like is that Diggo not only lets you easily save items, it lets you highlight the "good parts" so that when you go back to the article you can easily find them. That turned out to be a real asset when I was working on my part of the JACC Norcal keynote a couple weeks ago.

It's been a real pressure cooker of a semester, so I had very little time to put my JACC presentation together. However, I'd been bookmarking, highlighting and saving relevant blog posts and articles into my JACC list on Diigo (yes, you can categorize what you save) for weeks. So when I finally sat down to create a presentation, I had everything I needed at my fingertips. I was able to put it all together in a day. (By the way, you can view that presentation, Journalism in the Starbucks Era, on SlideShare, another great online tool.)

But after downloading a Diigo update this morning, I realized I'm just scratching the surface of what you can do with Diigo. For example, my previous blog post on Greenspan's sudden epiphany...well, I posted it direct from Diigo while reading and bookmarking the article. Pretty cool, huh?

When I ran through Diigo's "how-to" overview this morning, I found several other things I didn't know. In addition to using the one-click "Send to Blog" feature, you can also use Diigo's "send" feature to:

send annotated and highlighted pages by email
post to other websites such as twitter, facebook, delicious, etc.

Cool! I'm using it for a tweet next.

But what really caught my attention was the idea of using Diigo as a hub for group research projects. You can set up a group Diigo account to share bookmarks, and make it public, private or semi-private. This has real potential for students working on group projects, especially since Diigo's "sticky note" feature also lets you add comments to the material you save, in addition to highlighting key passages.

OK, I'm sold! I'm going to start demo-ing Diigo for my students.

Greenspan shocked at failure of free markets

2008-10-24T09:14:00.001-07:00

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has finally stopped believing in the fiction of a self-correcting free market. In other words, he's realized that Ayn Rand is not only dead, but that she was a novelist.

Greenspan shocked at failure of free markets
- It was a remarkable moment: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a lifelong champion of free markets, publicly questioning the philosophy that guided him throughout his years as the world's most powerful economic policymaker.
- Greenspan said that, in light of a crisis he characterized as "a once-in-a-century financial tsunami," he was wrong to think financial markets could police themselves. He incorrectly had expected the discipline of the market would prevent financial institutions from taking life-threatening risks.
- Greenspan replied that indeed he had found a flaw in his ideology, one that left him very distressed. "In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right?" asked Rep. Henry Waxman (chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform).
- For his whole adult life, the former Fed chairman has been a devotee of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who celebrated free-market capitalism as the world's most moral economic order and advocated a strict laissez-faire approach to government regulation of the marketplace.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Starbucks-era journalism

2008-10-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

You know you've got their attention when you get heckled during your presentation. At least that's my theory.

It happened at last Saturday's JACC NorCal conference (that's the Journalism Association of Community Colleges of Northern California), held at SJSU. My colleague Steve Sloan and I were the keynoters, addressing an audience of about 250 community college J-students and faculty on "Journalism in the Starbucks Era."

During our talk, we discussed some of the trends and online tools that are shaping journalism, including blogging, YouTube, Twitter and other forms of social media. I am a self-proclaimed blogging evangelist and a fan of Twitter, so my perspective on these tools is largely positive. I see them as tools, not as implements of destruction.

However, one CC faculty member, tucked in the last row, apparently disagreed. He took issue with the idea that bloggers could also be journalists. He interrupted us. Twice.

So here's what I told him: Blogging and journalism are not mutually exclusive. Journalism is what you do, not who you work for. Some journalists are also bloggers, and some bloggers do commit acts of journalism. After all, blogs are just another distribution channel, not the infidel.

Today, for example, some bloggers are doing something that looks a lot like journalism to me. They're digging through public records for background information on "Joe the (soon to be infamous) plumber," who was cited by Sen. John McCain in last night's presidential debate. Turns out that a number of the things McCain said about "Joe" last night are not true: Joe is registered as a Republican, not as an independent; he's a plumber's helper, not a plumbing business owner; and he doesn't make over $250,000 a year. Yes, it appears that Joe was a "plant."

Bloggers helped ferret some of that information out. Instead of looking at them as impediments, perhaps journalists should look at bloggers as potential resources...as people who could be helpful in these times of news organization cutbacks.

As the old saying goes, "Many hands make light work."

P.S. If you'd like to view my segment of our JACC presentation, you can see it on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.net/camccune. Links to all my resources are included on the final slide. And if you didn't "Hack the Debate," be sure to check out that link.

Daily laugh

2008-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Three things that made me laugh today:

"I thought it was just some creepy guy, like a very advanced Internet predator, who had worked really hard on his backstory."

~ Bo Burnham, YouTube phenom, on his first call from an agent (I read it in my morning SF Chron; you can read it online here)

"McCain finally shows his true zombie form."

~ Kitsune Noir, photo link via Twitter.

"The GOP likes to say it's a big tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

~ Christopher Buckley, National Review writer and son of the mag's founder, conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr., after his recent Obama endorsement sent NR readers and editors off the deep end. Buckley has resigned.

A Little Persuasion

2008-10-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

I should have been grading papers, but at the last minute I decided to play hooky for a few hours to see one of my favorites musicians, Richard Thompson, who was "playing real good for free" this afternoon at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest in Golden Gate Park.

Traffic was thick and the parking garage I'd found on Google Maps turned out not to exist, but I finally found a tiny parking space on the edge of the park just a few blocks from the stage. I squeezed my little VW Golf into it and hot-footed it into the park.

As I approached the open-air stage, I could hear Richard Thompson striking the opening chords of Bathsheba Smiles. A couple walking in the same direction asked, "Oh, is that Nick Lowe?"

"No," I replied, "that's Richard Thompson."

"Teddy Thompson's dad?"

"Yes, that's him."

On stage, it was just Thompson and his acoustic guitar, putting out enough sound to blow back your hair. He picks so fast and furious it always sounds like there must be two of him.

I found a open spot not too far back and sat cross-legged on the ground. Next up was one of my all-time Thompson favorites, Persuasion. As he sang, a pair of red-tailed hawks circled overhead. All around me, people tapped their feet and nodded their heads in time to the music. Some, like me, sang along on the chorus.

Also on the playlist: Crawl Back, 1952 Vincent Black Lightening, Sunset Song, a lovely ballad, and Dad's Gonna Kill Me, a song about Iraq ("Dad" is soldier slang for Baghdad, he said), and probably one or two others I forgot. He reprised with Valerie.

If you're not familar with Thompson, you can check him out on last.fm at http://www.last.fm/music/Richard+Thompson. Here's a YouTube video of Thompson singing Persuasion with his son, Teddy, who performed in town last month (sorry I missed that).

Tags: Richard Thompson, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

In sheep's clothing

2008-10-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

When I scanned this article in Salon.com this morning, I found the answer to a question that had been puzzling me since Monday. That's when I read this OpEd piece in the San Jose Mercury News. It purported to explain the author's support for Prop 8, which would eliminate the right of marriage for same-sex couples, despite his being a "liberal Democrat."

Great story. Too bad it turns out not to be true. As noted in the Salon.com article, the author appears to be a paid right-wing shill. However, MN readers weren't told that. Here's what they were told:

David Blankenhorn is president of the New York-based Institute for American Values and the author of "The Future of Marriage." He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

Nothing about his conservative connections. Nothing about him not really being a liberal. That kind of misrepresentation makes me mad, so I wrote this letter to the editor:

The Mercury News needs to do a better job of fact-checking its OpEds. If you had, you would have found that self-professed "liberal Democrat" David Blankenhorn, who wrote the Monday's oped "Protecting Marriage to Protect Children," is not who he says he is.

In fact, Blankenhorn appears to be a paid shill for several right-wing advocacy groups. His "think tank," the Institute for American Values (of which he is president), has raked in millions of dollars from ultra-conservative Republican foundations, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundation, and the Randolph Foundation.

As noted in an article in today's Salon.com, the Institute for American Values is just one of a "network of right-wing Republican think tanks that promote a variety of causes," including the elimination of gay marriage, abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research, and the inclusion of prayer and creationism in public schools.

Clearly, this guy is no liberal, and I kinda doubt he's a Democrat. I'd say you got played.

I hope you will issue a correction on your OpEd pages to clarify Mr. Blankenhorn's allegiances, so those who took his assertions at face value can be aware of his hidden agenda.

I kinda doubt the Mercury News will run a correction, but I figure it can't hurt to ask.

Full Disclosure: I have volunteered for the No on Prop8 campaign. We're holding No on Prop 8 phone bank sessions at my church. I even have a No on 8 yard sign. (And if David Blankenhorn had disclosed his biases, I wouldn't have felt the need to write this post.)

P.S. So maybe you're wondering, "Why should I care?" Maybe, like me, you're straight and married. If you're asking yourself that question, please read this letter, written by a member of my church to her family and friends.

Tags: No on Prop 8, prop8, California