Blues for Mai Cramer



Quotes

Shelley Powers
on ending her weblog

"I need to walk among forest paths with thoughts other than "I must remember to post this". I need to meet people and look into their eyes, and to laugh and hear something other than the echo of my own laughter back. And" I must stop using this weblog as a surrogate for life and the only way I can do this is to quit cold turkey. Walk away, and not look back."
"Burnngbird"

The Reader
After-hours edition of Subterranean Homepage News
(Why"The Reader"?)

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July 17, 2002

After hours: When I first worked on a newspaper's night desk, we'd put the paper to bed just around the time of last call at the local watering holes. Fortunately, there was an after-hours joint to accommodate our shifted lives. If there was nobody waiting at home for them, editors who'd ridden the deadline together unwound with hors d'oeuvres, beer and post-mortems in the dim light of a jukebox.

If the paper had recently written a story about the cops' after-hours club, a lieutenant might come peering at the door. We had to squat out of sight behind the bar, squelching chuckles as we imagined the photo of our mass arrest, till the owner shooed him away.

It's 3:11 a.m. now, after hours, but this blog is nothing like that club.
Link •

Not quite Rapunzel: Dave Winer wrote, "Shelia's (sic) back behind the firewall, blogging for bucks, and has uncovered a new advocacy group for people like you and me."

Sweet way to say that, Dave.

Back when I was making the case to keep the projo blogs on the open web as registration spread through the site, I said I didn't want to be the "Rapunzel of the Blogosphere."

And I'm not -- no registration is required for the blog pages. By comparison, a firewall isn't so bad.

The new advocacy group is called Public Knowledge. Over on Subterranean Homepage News, I wrote this: Public Knowledge is a new public-advocacy group "dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant 'information commons' - the shared information resources and cultural assets that we own as a people...." They hope to represent the interests of "a wide spectrum of stakeholders - libraries, educators, scientists, artists, musicians, journalists, consumers, software programmers, civic groups and enlightened businesses. "

"What's interesting here is that they intend to plump for both artists and consumers; notably missing are the middlemen."
Link •

July 15, 2002

Smart Mobs, by Howard Rheingold: "The big battle coming over the future of smart mobs concerns media cartels and government agencies are seeking to reimpose the regime of the broadcast era in which the customers of technology will be deprived of the power to create and left only with the power to consume. That power struggle is what the battles over file-sharing, copy protection, regulation of the radio spectrum are about." via Ye Olde Phart
Link •

September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is an advocacy organization founded by family members of September Eleventh victims. Its mission is to seek effective nonviolent responses to terrorism, and identify a commonality with all people similarly affected by violence throughout the world.
Link •

12:01 a.m. Monday: Vacation's over. (audio clip)