http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBNqNaZVc8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHWASn_ygo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cM-tF8-kY

For some reason I feel compelled to write something. Not sure what exactly, but the fact that President Obama chose my hometown of Elkhart, IN as his venue of choice to talk about the economy, well, freaks me out a little. The stat I keep hearing is that Elkhart’s employment is among the worst in the nation, going from around 4 percent in Dec 07 to over 15 percent in Dec 08.

So Obama is using Elkhart as a geographic symbol of the economic pain being suffered around the country and no doubt, increasingly the globe. He campaigned there and now he is back to promote the stimulus bill in congress. Back to make good on his campaign promises. His speech sounded like a stump speech from the start, but then he broke it down to specifics:
1) extend unemployment benefits and health care, job training programs
2) tax relief for “middle class workers and families.” $1000 per families and 2500 for college expenses
3) create or save jobs (80,000 for indiana), 90 percent in the private sector. Jobs to rebuild infrastructure.
4) work toward energy independence. alt energy sources and efficiency programs.
5) rural broadband expansion.

Meanwhile, the democrats in the senate are “compromising” away with republicans on getting a version of the stimulus bill passed.

Obama said he recognizes that the bill that comes out won’t be perfect, but it needs to be passed asap. “Doing nothing is not an option.” And this bill is just the beginning, recovery will take years.

Here is a link to a video of the speech

http://www.measurementlab.net/
http://blog.wired.com/business/google/

It’s hard to find the words to describe this right now. Amazing.

But this is only the start. We need to do our part, hold people accountable, and keep the faith.

For those who kept asking: Who is the real Obama?

Well, I think a better question is not “who is the real Obama,” but instead, who is the real citizenry of the United States and what are their biggest priorities? I doubt Obama could have ever been elected twenty years ago, but America today is different place. I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but it’s not like he beat McCain by a narrow margin; voters made a decisive choice. So I am asking, who exactly is the “real” America? Maybe the “center” is shifting to the “left.” No doubt we still have a fair amount of our xenophobic “I won’t vote for no Muslim” jackasses, but they either are not the majority or they didn’t vote.

But frankly I am tired of the rigid notion of liberals versus conservatives. From my perspective, the real problem is the mounting social inequality that results from governmental acquiescence (or blatant subservience) to elite corporate interests. And we see this from liberals and conservatives alike. This inequality is what people are against. If you want to call that “liberal,” that’s fine, but if that’s the case then there are a lot more liberals out there than you’d like to think. Obama holds out the promise to not only move beyond left/right, but more importantly to even the playing field for millions of people who are frustrated by a political economic system that simply isn’t working in their best interests. And I hope he can make some steps to do it, but it is all of our jobs to hold him to these tasks in the face of what will be immense resistance from the entrenched power holders.

All I know is that it feels damn good to finally be from a blue state! Maybe those doors I knocked on even made a difference. What a concept.

Cell phone photo of London terrorist attacks in 2005

Trent Lott resigns as Senate majority leader in 2002

Rathergate

Talking Points Memo and the US Attorney Firings and TPM Muckraker

This is my hometown.

From the New York Times:

Elkhart, near the Michigan border in an area known as Michiana, is the white-hot center of the meltdown of the American economy. Its main industries, the manufacturing of recreational vehicles and motor homes, have fallen apart over the last year because of high gasoline prices. That has taken down ancillary businesses like R.V. parts suppliers and storage warehouses.

The jobless rate in Elkhart has increased more than in any metropolitan area in the country; it rose over 4.8 percentage points from August 2007 to August 2008. According to labor statistics released this summer, nearly 10,000 people were out of work, a rate of 9.3 percent.

Full Story here

Multimedia story here

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/technology/21iphone.html

At least four institutions — the University of Maryland, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardeman — have announced that they will give the devices to some or all of their students this fall.

In the NYT: I was there. Just ask Photoshop. Williams, Alex. Aug 17, 2008.

As image-editing software grows in sophistication and ubiquity, alterations go far beyond removing red-eye and whitening teeth. They include substituting head shots to achieve the best combination of smiles, deleting problematic personalities or adding family members who were unable to attend important events, performing virtual liposuction or hair restoration, even reanimating the dead. Revisionist history, it seems, can be practiced by just about anyone.

This article could be paired with the previous post to illustrate two opposing affordances of digital tech (esp. at the consumer level). The previous post deals with challenging official narratives, where this story involves altering (photoshopping) our own histories.

[[[Could be used in 391 for Nov 19, visual culture

Here is a related story, also from NYT: Photography as a weapon. Morris, E. Aug 11, 2008.