Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

In today’s news, Norman Pearlstine, a long time top manager at Time Inc., the magazine division of Time-Warner, will be joining The Carlyle Group a Washington, D.C. based global private equity investment firm with more than USD$40 billion of equity capital under management, as a senior advisor.

I briefly met Mr. Pearlstine while at Time Warner, when hired to work on their experimental “Full Service Network” interactive television effort in the early 90’s. When introduced as a technical lead for the New York office, he half jokingly asked me, “Are you the one who is going to save us?” I good naturedly replied that I’d try my best. We knew we were in over our heads.

The Time Warner Cable FSN project was a technical boondoggle in deep trouble and would not be able to launch their tests at Celebration, FL for the scheduled date 4 months away. From what I gather, something was launched over 2 years after our meeting, but by that time broadband internet was all the rage, and TW was eying AOL as their path to interactivity. Back in those days, I advised TW to use the Internet as a channel on their interactive cable TV service, but the idea was dismissed, although not by Pearlstine himself.

In the days leading up to the FSN’s proposed Spring 1993 launch date, I had a longer discussion with Walter Isaacson, who was then the Managing Editor of Time magazine. In order to protect my immediate superiors at Time Warner Interactive, I was not able to disclose to him how feeble the FSN effort actually was. How would that look in a Time magazine article!? Even if I had told Isaacson of the many flaws in the system, I’m not sure what good it would have done, but I regret not having a deeper, more honest discussion. So much for office politics and paranoia.

Today I continue to work as the consultant behind the consultants, advisor to the advisors. I spend more time in the real world, hands on in leading edge places, from which many of the upper echelon are insulated and unaware.

“You may leave here for four days in space,
But when you return, it’s same old place.”
– by P.F. Sloan, sung by Barry McGuire, Eve of Destruction

Welcome back to planet Earth NASA space shuttle Discovery STS-121. Mission accomplished!

Meanwhile, here at home, despite the fact that every day is a gift that Earth gracefully gives us, foolish humans cannot help themselves from their selfish goals of destruction.

P.S.  NPR ran a radio story about PF SLoan’s new CD and tour on August 20, 2006.  Link here.

More my style this oddball surrealist painter John Wotipka is. I might go to the upcoming opening, but then do I really want to meet the weirdo who did these paintings? He could be onto something: rendering the mystery of insect thoughts, with the nanotechnologists studying how their tiny brains operate.

Web sightings found while admiring the fine paintings by Yoon Lee. One link took me to a calendar at Fecal Face.

Who would name a web site Fecal Face? Probably some wise guys in San Francisco, and this is an very unique and fun web experience indeed.

Fecal links you to further weirdness, such as humus which is an edgy online magazine composed in Flash. “Humus is a territory where images, creativity, thoughts and expressions have no border line or demarcation line. Feel free to contribute with: Graphic design, Motion design, Photography, Drawings, Illustrations, Poems.”

Back to Yoon Lee. I like the way she uses 3D software to simulate giant brush strokes. If only one could actually control that kind of gestural painting by hand. I’d have to see these up close and in person to further understand these, but they remind me of a controlled Jackson Pollock travelling through hyperspace.

On the subject of blending computer graphics and painterly techniques, I blogged about the tedious rotoscoping of A Scanner Darkly which has finally reached theatrical release, and not surprisingly received numerous “style over substance” reviews.

This Mister Borat dude is one crazy TV reporter man from Kazakhstan in this fall’s movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. See the funny video trailer online here.

It’s hard to know Sacha Baron Cohen‘s true identity: Borat, Ali G, or what? He also is the voice of King Julien in Madagascar and the upcoming Madagascar 2.

Back in the Reagan era, in order to reduce “Big Government” the President made a call for new volunteerism, and soon after, President George H. W. Bush advised America in his 1991 State of the Union Address:

“We can find meaning and reward by serving some purpose higher than ourselves — a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light.”

Not to be outdone by dad, playing the faithful optimist in his January 2002 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush called on all Americans to dedicate at least two years—the equivalent of 4,000 hours—in service to their communities, their country and the world. Yeah right!

If it can be agreed that much of U.S. government and politics has been corporatized, then recent developments point out that corporations have taken on more of the tasks that governments are failing at. Most people are working hard to make ends meet, but those who have succeeded at the capitalist game realize that it’s no fun being rich if the world is rapidly filling up with poverty, disease and weapons. They are successful thinkers and doers, who are on the forefront of new social activism and venture philanthropy.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is kicking off a national Federal Budget Priorities Campaign calling on Americans to reconsider spending priorities. The goal is to heighten awareness of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on nuclear weapons vs. a shortfall of spending on basic unmet needs of children.

Then of course there are the billion points of light emanating from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with the added 31 billion dollars recently committed to the foundation by their friend, legendary investor Warren Buffett.

Other successful investors are giving back and working towards positive change, such as George Soros Open Society Institute and James Simons’ Math For America.

Jeff Skoll made millions as the first President of eBay, and is founder and CEO of Participant Productions using the power of media for social change. A recent feature film release produced by Participant is Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which is a tremendous statement of scientific concern for the future of planet Earth.

Craigslist.org is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and helps to organize non-profit leadership through the Craigslist Foundation and their Bootcamp programs.

For additional information, the American Institute of Philanthropy has an online ratings list of many top charitable organizations, their categories and how to contact them.

ClassWar 1

Originally uploaded by Greg Palast.

Why does Yahoo Finance insist on publishing Robin Leach type articles about lifestyles of the rich and famous, and have the audacity to call these people, the other half? Come on now, it’s the upper crust of 5% they are flaunting in the rest of our faces. If you really care, then that is sad, since you probably also wish you could have attended Ken Lay’s funeral with all the trimmings.

Viewing activity on TheBroth.com is sort of like watching a bunch of ants moving grains of sand… are they intelligent ants who will next create a Tibetan sand painting? Check it out and see what they are up to. The site appears to be new as of around May 2006, so you can get involved and make an early impact. I just “wasted” about 30 minutes there… must get away!

Later that day…