Create & Promote

The News:
Obama announced:

- More than 3,000 miles of new electricity transmission lines would be laid down to improve the US power network

- 75% of public sector buildings would be made more energy-efficient, saving taxpayers $2bn a year

- More than 2.5m homes would be "weatherized" (made more energy efficient),

- Funds would be made available to improve or renovate 10,000 schools

And said:

"Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made public, and informed by independent experts whenever possible.

"We'll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov."

PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on their Obameter.



Shortly after issuing new rules against the revolving door of lobbyists and government, an exception has been made for Raytheon lobbyist to serve as Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Joseph Bruno, the Republican former Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, was indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of public corruption.

Moody's downgraded its ratings on The New York Times to junk.

The Pentagon changes it's story on terror suspects again, and again, and again, and again....

Another interesting story traces back to the nuclear network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Seconds after BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, police immediately began confiscating cell phones containing videos.

Reactions::

Democrats who voted for Bush's bailouts that have changed their mind:
ichael Arcuri (NY), Shelley Berkley (NV), Marion Berry (AR), Dan Boren (OK), Allen Boyd (FL), Dennis Cardoza (CA), Jim Costa (CA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Artur Davis (AL), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Phil Hare (IL), Jane Harman (CA), Ron Kind (WI), Jerry McNerney (CA), Kendrick Meek (FL), Charlie Melancon (LA), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (NY), Laura Richardson (CA), Mike Ross (AR), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter (NY), Zack Space (OH), Jackie Speier (CA), Peter Welch (VT)

Your Job:
We're affected daily by things people make, from the drawing a kid makes, your newest favorite music, something someone says that sticks with you, an e-mail, a news story, a movie, a post on a discussion board, a piece of art or even a sign. We may be less sensitive to these things than in the past however they still have an affect, whether we are aware of them or not. Everything has some some type of weight.

Movies over 30 years old can still affect how we view the world:

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

You can't see Zeitgeist, the Movie in theaters but it's become quite popular on the web:

The Other Parts

Are we as individuals creating our society or are reacting to it? Are we on the whole too complacent? It's easier to criticize something than it is to do it oneself. "I could have caught that," one might say about a failed football catch. "I could have done that," one might say about a piece of modern art.

Sometimes the greatest effect of creating something is to generate thought or discussion. Some movies I consider terrible drive me crazy but I end up talking about them over and over. Sometimes the act of creating something is itself therapeutic. We are a nation greater than what we see on TV. Everything created doesn't need to be famous or make you famous. The affect famous work has on society is often overstated and the affect un-famous work has is often understated.

Society is viral. Come up with a great idea and tell people about it and who knows, it might soon exist. We're always looking for things to talk about and often that ends up being the ideas we here from others or in movies or on TV or what any of those things made us think about. All of this as a whole becomes our culture and a rich culture means a rich nation.

Today we encourage creation and promotion of creations. You never know who you are going to affect. In 2001/2 Paul Brown and I launched a band whose first record release was called "The War on Huh?" We didn't affect you because you probably didn't hear our record but when we practiced, we'd hear people on the street outside of our San Francisco apartment say things like "That's right - you tell it". If nothing other than that it was therapy for us as we were outraged daily by new government offenses and amazed that there was not more opposition in those early days of the Bush administration. We sought to do something and given that the daily e-mails and faxes to media and Congress and my friend I was sending was accomplishing nothing, we turned to making our own culture.

The Bush administration ultimately encouraged a lot of culture-making. Extremist political leaders have a way of encouraging artists to produce work. Did not Ronald Reagan as governor of California and ultimately president inspire musicians to speak out? How much music inspired people to get involved in their society during the Clinton years?

Let's keep it up. You don't have to be an artist or musician to create something or be involved. You can appreciate and promote. Never before has it been easier to do so. Technology has provided us the tools to create and a web to mass distribute. You don't even need the technology. You could dedicate 30 minutes one night a week in your house to family entertainment night and play each other music or tell each other a story or whatever it is that you find entertaining.

So let's create something or promote something! Whatcha got?

I'd like to start by promoting a comment that one of our readers, John Danley made:

"Every bit of information you send whether it's email, IM, credit cards, ATM, non-cash purchases, phone calls, you name it it is logged, stored, backed-up and archived for eternity. As a database administrator who has worked on quite a number of government and private sector projects I've seen, built and maintained the systems and the data that is out there. I've helped get data, including criminal data passed between disparate systems. The "total information awareness" is not there yet, but well on it's way and companies like Google are leading the way. Basically Google and others are acting like (or are) huge data warehouses and various applicaions or systems will act and are acting to aggregate that data...

This information can get into the "wrong" hands, criminal hands. What if criminal hands equal government hands? What? No, that wouldn't happen would it? So there must be controls. Citizens must be vigilant. Citizens must be educated. Citizens must be taught not to be apethetic."

The rest of it is well worth reading and can be found here.