Apt. 11D

Time Off

I need a few days off. I'll be back Sunday night.

SarahPAC

Sarah Palin has launched SarahPAC. Some of the money will be used to pay off the RNC for her wardrobe and get the clothes out of the garbage bags.

Spreadin' Love

OMG. These girls better keep away from my husband. (via Megan)

Atlantic Monthly has a new business blog. 

The porn industry has discovered 3D glasses. What happens when they get the hang of the wii? (via Sullivan)

The cultural treasures of New Jersey. Oh, shut up. There are some, you know. (via Cowen, who knows a thing or two about Jersey)

Hive five!

HIGH-FIVE INAUGURATION! - watch more funny videos

Appearances

A few weeks ago, Jonah got his first report card of the year. They have dumped the old system of As and Bs and Cs. That's old school. Some genius figured that if they change As to Es for Excellent and Bs to Gs for Good, everyone would feel warm and fuzzy and not end up as one of those angry kids in the ads for the Huntington Learning centers.

New Media in the News

I just came out of my Media class, so I've got media on the mind. There were a couple of interesting articles in the paper in the past couple of days related to new media.

The first was an article in the magazine section of the New York Times, which discussed the role that Facebook has played in opening up opportunities for free speech and assembly in countries that don't allow such things. In Egypt, students have used Facebook's groups to organize. The April 6th group has 70,000 members and has publicized protest sites and pictures taken on cell phones of police cracking down on protesters. Ethan Zuckerman says that authoritarians countries cannot crackdown on Facebook like they can on other internet websites, because the people who use it for fun and recreation would flip out. He calls it the "Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism."

This article was interesting because it fits in well with two debates in the academic community. One is whether or not online political discussions can lead to real offline action. The other is whether or new media always leads to democracy and increased freedom.

The second article discusses how Obama hopes to use the same tools of new media -- facebook, youtube, twitter, e-mail lists -- that helped him get elected for reaching his supporters post-election. He wants to use YouTube to publicize his message without media filters today. 

The only concern here is that, in general, people do believe that the media should act as a check on government. It's not really a good thing, when our politicians become more savvy about reaching the public than the media.

The Influence of Bloggers

Forbes put out its list of the top 25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media. I counted five bloggers on the list.

House Envy

Brad and Angelina have rented a pad on the North Shore of Long Island while she films some spy thriller. Check out the house. I know you want to. I think that house could eat about 20 houses like mine.

It's Zoe Baird Again

The Daily News is reporting the Caroline Kennedy bowed out because of tax and nanny issues.

Dudes, green cards and social security. It's not that hard.

UPDATE: He nominated Rep. Gillibrand. Yeah, I know. Who?

Inauguration Day Satellite Pix

from here.

Spreadin' Love

Academics, specifically Political Scientists, are attempting to show that they are too sexy for their spreadsheet. I'm not buying it.

Harry wants to know if your kids watched the inauguration at school. Mine did. He doubts that the school had the kids watch the Bush inauguration, but that doesn't really bother him. He would prefer if the kids studied instead.

Two cents on the speech and hoopla from around the blogosphere: Charli Carpenter, Nate Oman, Russell Arben Fox, (more later)

Laura at GeekyMom writes that she has honed very important career skills during times that she wasn't in the workplace. Opting out doesn't mean atrophying. 

Martha reveals her secrets. 

Like just everyone else I'm pretty psyched to have a new president. So regular civilian Laura is happy. Political scientist Laura has been keeping her mouth shut. That Laura just knows that it all isn't going to last long. I don't really want to write that sort of thing right now, but big sweeping, good sort of changes don't really happen in this country for a long list of reasons. Sigh. That said, Presidents usually have a hot few months out of the blocks. The honeymoon period. Sides predicts that Obama should be able to get much done in his first 100 days, because conditions are right. 

Oscar nominations are in. Good year for Benjamin Button. Not sure if I'm on board with that. But more importantly HUGH JACKMAN will be hosting the affair this year. He's my new boyfriend. And yes, we'll be liveblogging it this year.

Speculation about why Caroline really dropped out. Andrew Cuomo bugs the crap out of me for undefinable reasons. Not so happy.