Art Smith August 17th, 2008
It appears that my rss feeds and daily subscription email deliveries have been down for the last day or so. As best I can tell, my Friday posting was the main culprit. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. If you’ve missed the the articles titled “Doing My Part” and “What Does It Mean To Suffer?”, you can click on the names of the articles or simple come to the web site to view them.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith August 8th, 2008
Just announced late last week, Brian is shutting down for good, and letting the domain registration expire.
I’ve found Brian’s commentary to be refreshing and entertaining over the past year tht I’ve followed him. I am sad to see him go, and hope that he’ll show up here and there.
As a fellow Iowa, it’s also sad to see him drop off the field of Iowa bloggers. You’ll be missed here as well!
Take care.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith August 6th, 2008
I’ve been noting the movement of the price of oil for several days now, and although the direction of the changes have been correct, the actual amounts that I’ve been disclosing as “closing” are actually the price at the time I looked at them on the Reuters web site… which continues to reflect, from what I see now, after-hours trading prices. Not Reuters’ fault at all, just a misunderstanding on my part.
I need to look around for a more reliable way to track this each day.
I’m open to suggestions!
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith August 2nd, 2008
To those of you who are Internet Explorer users, I apologize for the fact that you were unable to get to The Conservative Reader during the past 12 hours. I’m not 100% sure of the cause of the problem, but it has something to do with a tool called “Sitemeter” that I use to track how many people are coming to this web site.
For now, I’ve shut off the tool. I’ll put it back on only when I know it’s safe. Evidently this has affected tens of thousands of web sites, so we’re not alone.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith July 25th, 2008
About four months ago (I know, I’m a little behind catching up with some general topics), DavidL at BitsBlog shared an item from Edward Wasserman at the Miami Herald. Wasserman’s thought was that there is a need for rules to constrain course, offensive, and threatening language on the internet, or at least the news and blogosphere.
David’s response to Ed’s commentary was not unexpected, nor inappropriate. I agree that those who wish to maintain open content and uncensored invectives is a right that should be available to those who wish to interact in that manner. And David is correct, if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
That doesn’t change the fact that some of us see a need for rules that exist within a somewhat protected space.
While there are those that cannot engage in some form of discourse without a degree of content that others may find offensive, there are others who are easily intimidated, or who have standards and sensibilities that are more restrained, or who wish to ensure their children have a place to engage in such discourse without having to be exposed to course or venomous commentary.
My contention is that there is not a topic that I can think of that requires course or intimidating language to communicate your ideas. As Wasserman stated, a set of rules that restricts this kind of language is not elitist, and frankly helps to promote civility.
But people do have the right to use such language. Any rules that are created toward civil discourse on the Internet would have to be either constrained to sites that wish to maintain that level of civility, or would merely be a guide for people who wish to maintain a more civil discourse as a community and simply use the guide for self-regulation.
Although Wasserman was speaking more or less toward the issues of managing open commentary on publication web sites such as the Miami Herald, this discussion certainly extends beyond that domain. The challenge that an organization such MH has when addressing this is that any censorship will (as Wasserman stated) impact site visits and comments… the more you limit free expression, the fewer people who will engage… for MH, that can mean real money (lost). Money tends to come out ahead.
Those that operate more of a non-profit model have more room to place controls since they are not concerned about income, but they should still be concerned about market penetration even if they aren’t making money from the visits directly.
We have our own set of rules here at The Conservative Reader. They might not be perfect, but part of our goal is to make this a place where families can come to learn, interact, and share ideas without having to be concerned about intimidation, reprisal, or content that is just not appropriate for children.
I think the ideal solution is to go ahead and create the rules, treat them as open-source content for discussion and use. Create a certificate badge for sites that want to enforce the rules (and maybe a similar one for sites that want to be wide open) so people know what they are getting into when they visit.
Worth noting is the recent study that shows course and offensive language is actually declining. I don’t have the link (I know I read about in the last week or so somewhere), but as soon as I find it, I’ll update this post.
Nice to think that somehow things are improving even if in little ways.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith July 15th, 2008
Tonight, my 11-year-old niece wants to go see Wall-E (as do I), so we’re heading out to see that (despite what I understand is an overtly “global-warming-the-Earth-is-gonna-perish-unless-we-do-something-now” message.
Reminds me the last movie I saw with “Wall” as the center of the title (The Wall) was another strong message from a different kind of left.
It’s always a pleasure to have my niece visit us, and I may not have much time for significant blogging the next few days. Feel free to use this as an open thread.
I will provide a review of the movie as well.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith June 21st, 2008
Doh!
All of my images have been gone from about noon today until 11:30 PM. I just realized when I upgraded to 2.5.1, I forgot to reload my backup of the “uploads” folder.
I’m really sorry about that. Everything should be tidy again now!
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith June 21st, 2008
I’m still getting caught up on things political. Like, Laura Ingraham is now doing a weekly show on Fox called “Just In”. I have yet to see it, but if you’re a fan of her radio program, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
Speaking of Laura’s radio show, evidently she’s in the middle of some kind of contract thing with her network. There’s a lot of squawking here and there (I got an email saying she’s being shut down). However, Laura says everything is okay, and she’ll be back on the radio soon enough. Sit tight folks.
The Associated Press has been nice enough to drag a number of bloggers through the mud… so far, The Conservative Reader has kept below the radar… it helps that we’re not quite as popular as some other sites. My friend Bit is taking a stand and not going to reference any more AP material. I’m still on the fence on this… on the one hand, I agree with Bit’s approach: if AP doesn’t want their stories and opinions heard, maybe we should oblige them. On the other hand, what they produce is readily available on thousands of outlets… by shutting off AP we shut off a lot of their customers as well… and we may limit the overall conversation. I know Bit would say that’s AP’s fault and problem. I still need to work it out for myself. I will say I won’t be paying AP for content, so I’m already pushing myself in the same direction.
It’s early, so I suspect someone will need to start keeping score. Obama has already broken one campaign pledge be declining the public funding program, which means he can raise and spend as much as he wants, while McCain will stay within the $84 Million limit. I think McCain hit it on the nose: not a broken pledge to McCain so much as to the American People. It’s even more interesting to see the heat that BO is taking from those in the media from whom he needs to maintain support. The New York Times gave him, not a blasting, but a harsher response than I expected. Politico ran good coverage on the response from print editors. Obama will be the first candidate from a major party to decline public funding since its inception. This will alone will make the race wildly different than races of the past 32 years.
Congress passed FISA after all! And with immunity for the telcos. The only thing is, Obama has already stated that when he becomes president, he’ll do everything he can to remove the telco protections. The telco thing just makes me want to scream. What is the point of passing a law like this, and then saying that if the telco does what the government legally asks it to do, that they should be open to being sued? Either it’s okay or it’s not. This just doesn’t make sense, and if Obama gets in, it sounds like his mission will be to turn our world completely upside down, between this and pulling out of Iraq and shutting down our nuclear weapons systems.
Maybe instead of catching up, I should have focused on some other natural disasters like my New York Mets.
Thousands of Hat Tips, but at least to BitsBlog, Sister Toldjah, Politico, BetaNews.
Sphere: Related ContentArt Smith June 21st, 2008
Went ahead and ran the upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1.
It’s a breath of fresh air.
Before too long, there will be additional changes, including a new theme. More on that later.
Art Smith June 9th, 2008
Got the high-speed running again, and we’re all very happy here!
I can’t say the same for everyone in town. We continue to have flooding throughout the state, and water levels are rising around Des Moines. The local AAA baseball park is at the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers, and city crews are placing sandbags around the facility (it was washed out pretty badly in 1993). Bottom line is, we’re in the middle of it right now, and we don’t know how it’s going to come out. Officials are confident that levees and flood walls built after 1993 will help provide better protection through this event.
Story City, Mason City and other points around the state are already under water to some degree. Iowa City is likely to be flooded as well. My normal route to work in downtown Des Moines is along the Raccoon River, and the road I take was under water in 1993. It was okay this morning, but you could see the water level in the river was very high.
So far, 41 counties (including Polk, where Des Moines is) have been declared Disaster Areas in Iowa. All of the flooding models that have been presented so far don’t include consideration of any additional rain, which we expect to see by Thursday.
I have yet to get my vegetable garden in with the ground being so wet… I need to finish tilling in sand and peat moss. I’m about ready to give up hope on raising tomatoes this year.
One thing I’ll say is, high commendation to state, county and city officials in how well they’ve been organized and operated through the relief efforts. I don’t think we’ve had to ingratiate the Federal Government by asking them to come help us, which provides great evidence of the power of local governments to handle disasters effectively.
Let’s hope we can get dry quickly.
(Edit - Art: Added link)
Sphere: Related Content
