WE ARE ALL STAKE HOLDERS

SOME THINGS HAVE TO BE SAID

     Despite my intention to provide only art and beauty in this first post of the week perhaps an obvious statement needs to be made.

      How many Americans need to be gunned down before citizens demand that something be done?  No other nation on the planet has as many murders. I am a full supporter of the Bill of Rights.  The first amendment is my favorite, but all of them are important.  So I'm not trashing the Second. Still something is profoundly wrong when deranged people or hate filled bigots and zealots can so easily destroy life.

       We cannot continue to take these shocks and refuse to do something to prevent them.  We all have a stake in this.

DAY FILE

LINES AND TEXTURES
a collection of scenes where I was struck
by linearity and patterns

In the shot above and below is a pattern of lines in confluence.

   Kelp, seaweed trailing on the surface of the water.

   These are shots of light captured on ripples in the Pacific

   Lines of an emerging lean to

FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC LOVERS ONLY
A CAMBRIA LOCAL

   Camp Ocean Pines, which is very true to its name, hosted

an extraordinary musical event this weekend.  Under the towering Monterey Pine, with window peaks of the deep Pacific Blue warmed by dappled sun beneath the arch of cobalt blue skies, musicians filled the air with classical beauty.  Performers had completed the Summer Strings Workshop under the guidance of the San Luis Obispo Symphony.  Here is a sample.  My apologies the video quality is not more fitting the quality of the music. We gleaned this with a hand held iPhone.  Still, you'll get a sense of the special afternoon.

THE WEEKENDER :) AWESOME

AWESOME!
in so many ways

     The Weekender :) begins with a tribute to patience.

8 hours of Wednesday and Thursday were spent on the phone and on line sorting through nooks and crannies of my computer and programs looking for the reason I could not effectively use some of the tool bar on this blogger site.

     Dan from Apple support was the guy who was on the phone as we finally jiggled a jot that got it done.  Richard was helpful for two hours of searching.  Before that Brian was helpful, if perplexed before handing me over to a guy in iphoto support. He was a bit testy and slightly arrogant though he was dealing with me and my frustration and I could well have been the source of his seeming irritation.  Except for that the Apple guys were truly helpful, attentive and superb.

      Blogger support is merely canned text or direction to "support groups" that in reality are a list of people with questions and complaints that go largely unattended by anyone with Blogger.

       The source of the sudden chaos in my peaceful cyber world was updating the mac to Safari 6.  Things are different in Safari 6 and some of those things are little goblins that have disruptive capacity.  So, I'm singing the praises of the Awesome Apple Support team and my own Mac's Only Guru, Rick who was able to plow into some helpful and suggestive space very quickly.  Though this Blogger world is big, rich and full of great stuff, they could take a few lessons from the Apple team.

       And I can't help but think about trying to explain to my late mom and dad some of the stuff their eldest was doing with, in and around a computer, while on the phone, and on line. That would have been both amusing and Awesome!  My daughters would probably land more on Amusing!

                                   NOW THIS IS 

                                TRULY AWESOME

     Thanks to my friend and retired Navy man Lew for this find. Please take 5 minutes sometime this weekend to see this extraordinary bit of life on this blue planet.

                                              

DAY FILE

OF SEEDS AND BEES
for the land bound

      It's the time of year when we like to collect lupine seed as the pods turn brown.  But, as you notice, one must collect carefully.

Take a look around this weekend
and find something awesome in your world.
See you down the trail.

TRANSPARENCY & NAKED LADIES

WHICH MEDIA CAN YOU TRUST

     If you consider yourself well informed, interested and a user of any form of news media link here to James Asher's piece on Washington journalism.

        Asher is the Bureau Chief of the McClatchy newspaper chain.  Their record of hard nosed and investigative reporting is impressive, despite being in smaller and mid sized markets. Asher deals with a dirty secret of Washington reporting.  

        In other postings you may have noted I find a lot that is wrong with contemporary reporting-print and broadcast.  Standards have declined. So much clap trap is packaged and presented as news when it is promotional hype, celebrity gossip, spin, opinion and shallow content.  

       I started in a large city news room where  the standard was at least two sources to confirm something before we went with it.  We were drilled, and edited, to keep opinion and speculation out of the copy.  We established ground rules with sources.  Later when I directed news teams I insisted that before we used an anonymous source, I knew and vetted the source and in some cases insisted they sign a statement to be used only if it came down to our reporter being jailed for contempt or the company being sued in an action where our counsel thought disclosure of the source would be a good defense tool, but only as a last resort in seeking a dismissal, summary judgement or negotiated settlement. It was a tool for a rare and last stop decision. One must operate  within codes of conduct and cannons of behavior.  The Dirty Secret that Asher writes of is offensive to how journalism should be practiced. One more instance of a slide toward the swamp.

       Many dispute the value of journalism and, sadly, it is hard to defend so much of what we have today, including the partisan FOX News, and MSNBC. However this nation is best served by a non partisan, non ideological journalism that asks hard questions of everyone, demands honesty of everyone, verifys information scrupulously, and does it in a transparent and honorable way, according to canons and codes of conduct.  Anything else is rotten.

    Asher nails the rot that is rampant in Washington journalism. Let me know what you think.

      

DAY FILE

NAKED LADIES
That is what they call these beautiful wild flowers
that just pop up this time of year.

You just never know where a naked lady may show up.
Wow!
See you down the trail.

HELLO, TECH SUPPORT

THE INDIAN PARADIGM

     You've probably seen those pictures making their way around the cyber world-street scenes of cities in India where power and phone lines criss-cross, snake and weave their way in a rats nest, while the captions read as to how this is where we call for "tech support."

      No one is laughing today, as 600 million are without power.  The frightening and economically damaging outage is also a "poster child" for a world where technology leap frogs into new patterns without forethought.  How does a rapidly expanding economy, like India but also think China, manage to continue its growth and yet do so in ways that do not over reach? At least over reach until there are significant break downs, both in services and expectations.

      Money is not so much the problem.  There is plenty of money in expanding quarters of the Indian economy.  The difficulty is in planning-orderly planning and phased growth-as well as government and/or service management.  

     Less serious, but from the same root, is the topic I posted yesterday-old fashioned Network mindsets in a Twitter and social media world.  There is even more fuel on that fire today as NBC is taking more shots for their numb skull promotion cycle, just in advance of their own intent to build drama into a Missy Franklin race. And there is the flap about pulling Twitter rights. Guess we can't have the most rapid media beat the old systems, and on and on and on.

     Planning ahead? Thinking it through?  Making arrangements?  Accommodating new technologies?

     Old systems in conflict with new patterns.  India-though a hot economy, unable to manage into the future.  

      I'm miffed and slightly amused when I see miles and miles of telephone and/or power lines strung along the same route captured in historic photographs.  We can send messages to Mars rovers, satellites and other even more distant space explorers, but we still hang those lines like we did a hundred years ago, or longer.  Yea, OK, I know electricity needs a path, but there are other ways to pipeline it, and there are alternative energy sources. 

      No one believes future technology advances, especially in communications and information sharing, will get less complex or infrastructure dependent, but where do we see evidence of nations, or even hemispheres planning for what is to come?  No one believes we will use less energy, unless of course, the system goes down, like it did in Tech Support Land.

      

     OK, it's time to chill.  Here's something for your blood pressure.

DAY FILE

JUST WATCHING THE WAVES

See you down the trail.

AN OLYMPIC MEDIA DIVIDE

TECHNOLOGY HAS PASSED THE OLD WAY

     It is probably time for Olympic organizers, the IOC, and their media partners to get fully into the 21st Century.  Their old fashioned approach is silly.

       CASES IN POINT

       Viewers are already all over NBC for their multi hour tape delay of the opening ceremony and the rounds of competition.  I was angry, because as a regular BBC Internet viewer/reader, I was unable to see the Beeb's stuff because of the US deal with NBC.  

       Still tape delay in the the age of Twitter creates a real problem as Fred Wilson of AVC writes in this blog.

        Techcrunch.com weighs in on the flap calling the delay STUPID in this link.

       It's a fascinating, even if painful example of how social media platforms have outdated the thinking of Network executives and business hustlers.  Why tape delay in a 24/7 world of instant media?  Sure, the answer is ad dollars are higher if the Olympics play in prime time, instead of real time, which half way around the world could mean the middle of the night or the middle of the afternoon when viewership is down. But that old business model, may be just that-old and out of date.

      PaidContent.org, which watches the economics of digital content reports in this link how Twitter activity has jeopardized broadcast coverage.

        Here is Reuter's take on the embarrassment.

        If nothing else, this Olympiad should signal a new way to approach coverage of the games.  Instead of add ons or afterthoughts, new media platforms should be a key strategy for those nations where time zone differences

are important.

     

DAY FILE

BLOOMS ADD CHEER

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) FUTURE TALENT

THE FUTURE

 HALF FULL

AT LEAST

     Sorry for using the tired old example of "the Glass-half empty or half full?"  But at a time when media seems to dwell on issues, problems and crisis after crisis and when political process has ceased to be dialogue but instead is bombast followed by bombast, it is understandable why people consider the future with less than optimism. 

     I've been working with college seniors and juniors in a leadership training and legislative environment. We've worked 11 hour days in amassing a great deal of information, doing evaluation and rendering critical decisions.  I am in awe of their ability to focus and exercise facility of mind.  There is also a sense of obligation to a set of core values that underpin their action.  I will leave this exercise with a renewed sense of hopefulness and expectation. In their hands, there is a future with capability, and excellence. There is also that horizon bending attribute of youthful potential.

MORE OF THAT

IN THIS WEEKENDER :) VIDEO

     A little context-This is by a student and was done for a 

school video project.  Joe Bush and Zach Hemsey culled the images and wove together this extraordinary timeline.  

     When I was president/ceo of a documentary and media production company I took great delight in "discovering" young talent, people with skills like Joe and Zach.  What boggles my mind is how young these extraordinary visual artists are.

     This is a generation that has grown up with gadgets in their hands, and man can they make them work!

      Enjoy.

See you down the trail.

TOO PICKY? & HIGH ADVENTURE

TWEETED OUT OF THE GAMES

    OK, so the joke about West Nile Mosquitoes wasn't in the best of taste, but neither was it dangerously offensive. It seemed a harmless attempt with an unintended racism, but it cost Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou her trip to the Olympic games and earned her ignominy.

     This is troublesome.  It once again moves private communication, in this case via Twitter, into the public arena.  In truth the joke was intended only for her followers, in a sense a private arena.  However we can no longer pretend that social media, even if directed to specific users, is like an old fashioned snail mail letter.  One more encroachment upon personal space perhaps, but the way it is in this age. 

     But even given the questionable nature of the joke, is that really grounds to ban an athlete from participating?  If she had told the joke just to fellow triple jumpers, or her coach, it probably would not have resulted in her expulsion.

      I question the fairness and proportionality of the move to kick her out of the games.  As another athlete said, it is a new age.  So it is, and if you are an athletic star, I guess you should be on your best behavior- always.  Just like Soccer, NFL Football, NBA Basketball players always are, right?

       I think she could have "scolded", but being expelled is

an Olympic blunder.  

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF

LUKE AND HEMINGWAY

HIGH ADVENTURE

     Luke-climber, hunter, fast and preferring the high ground.

    Tree, car, fence, house-all places from which he can watch.

        Brother Hemingway follows older brother.

    But as far as core competency, Hemingway rests well.  He's an expert at taking it easy.

    Luke, in his solitude.

See you down the trail.