Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

The MGM Grand Las Vegas
Originally uploaded by Wolfgang Staudt.

In a few days I will be joining the famous video blogger Nick of schmult.com, the TechieDiva and rising TV presence Christianna M to cover the Billboard Music Awards for our newly launched Tubular TV vlog site. Nick seems to be equipped to video blog everything, so it might be a bit uncomfortable sharing a room with this dude. How far will he go to get more hits?

Britney Spears, help!

Lafayette is a quiet enclave nestled in rolling hills east of Berkeley near Walnut Creek. It is relatively upscale with well educated residents with expensive homes and refined tastes.

About a month ago, my wife who uses the Lafayette BART station mentioned seeing many white crosses (over 400) and the death toll sign planted on a hillside across from the station. She veers from political discussions, and has had to brush off an upset commuter trying to share her displeasure with the memorial.

Next thing, a student in the Ohlone TV News class brought in a story about the controversy arising over the crosses and sign display, and mentioned it had been discussed on nationally syndicated conservative talk radio programs.

This morning I noticed a San Francisco Chronicle article about an upcoming City Council meeting where locals will express their feelings about this free speech issue.

So, I drove to Lafayette, about 5 miles from my home, and shot some video and photos of the hillside and around the train station. There was a local CBS radio reporter scouting for people to interview. Then a woman with a shovel came, climbed up the hill and began digging holes. The reporter told me that there would be more crosses arriving later in the day to go into the fresh holes. Some other people there confirmed that they had seen the story covered on CNN television news.

I’ll probably go there and shoot some more video, then edit it and upload them to a few of the online video web sites.

On my return trip in the afternoon, I met Bob Hanson, Co-chair of the Mount Diablo Peace Center of Walnut Creek. He explained their mission of peace and justice through this hillside installation, which is also described on their web site.

See the video. 

Follow the arc of a major painter’s life in a fascinating video interview with Charlie Rose. He currently has a major show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Marden speaks lucidly of many things in this one hour interview such as looking at paintings, rules of design and structure, breaking the rules, and how an artist can never settle into a state of satisfaction with the work. This is some cool dude who paints the finest squiggly lines I’ve seen.

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Here is SNAFUPERMAN! From the YouTube posting by videolicious… “This is one of 26 Private SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fouled Up) cartoons made by the US Army Signal Corps to educate and boost the morale the troops. Originally created by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Phil Eastman, most of the cartoons were produced by Warner Brothers Animation Studios – employing their animators, voice actors (primarily Mel Blanc) and Carl Stalling’s music.”

Also, this is a test of the mytube WordPress plug-in.

Why of course, it’s only a refinement of the Frustrated Total Internal Reflection sensing technique.  See the cool video displaying virtual DJ platter interaction on the big colorful touch screen.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and proprietor of City Light Books in San Francisco, has written about the “Howl that was heard around the world” in today’s SF Chronicle. The poem and the book Howl and other Poems launched a mileston free speech trial in 1956. More about Allen Ginsberg.

Getty Images is one of the world’s largest stock photography agencies. They’ve created an interactive Flash web site with ten extraordinary visual experiences for web browsers to explore: 10 whey ays.  The cosmic zoom of way number 2, information, is amazing.

Donald Rumsfeld blew many a smokescreen in his days of diffusing clarity on the purposes and strategies of the invasion of Iraq. He projected an air of superior intelligence in his obfuscations. He will be remembered for this rambling poetic cosmic theory:

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns,” he said.

See the video.