infobong.com

unconventional circular design

Back in 2001, when I was an editor at a computer magazine, my company had laid off nearly all of the editors at the suburban Philadelphia office. My boss wanted me to move to Irvine and work at one of the main editorial office, and I flew out there in September to check out the town and look for apartments. It didn't take me long to realize that Irvine was not a place for me. I jokingly called it "Plano-by-the-Sea" because of it's bland suburban architecture and lack of independent culture; it was about as different from West Philly as I could imagine. I drove around Orange County quite a bit while I was there, and I stopped by UC-Irvine, thinking that the campus might at least offer some interesting coffeeshops and walks. Sadly, campus seemed to have little going on, and, driving around, it seemed like a "strip-mall campus" where students pull up to class in their cars, unlike other campuses like OU, Penn, or UT, where the layout encourages walks across campus and serendipitous encounters. The Wikipedia entry on UC-Irvine seems to confirm this impression.

Certainly designing campuses to minimize protests is not unique to Irvine. UT's West Mall was restructured to limit the size of groups congregating in the space, and OU's Physical Sciences Center was designed to be used as a stronghold in the event of a riot. The Wikipedia article adds that "Most likely, the design of the campus is simply representative of mid-60s urban design, favoring large open spaces and decentralized facilities over the dense layout of older campuses," which reenforces my impression that the campus was designed like a strip-mall.

katholische akademie

On Wikipedia, I found a shot of Jürgen Habermas chatting it up with then-Cardinal Ratzinger. I'm not sure why I find this funny. Perhaps it's because I find Habermas' efforts at rehabilitating Enlightenment thought as conservative or at least neoliberal and seeing him with someone as odious as Pope Benedict XVI sort of seals the deal.

cleaning tip

I routinely carry around a polycarbonate plastic water bottle. Yeah, it's a little too trendy for me, but I live in Texas, and I'm also routinely dehydrated. Despite regular hand-washings, I've noticed that my $1.99 Nalgene knockoffs have developed a stubborn layer of scale inside, which seemed difficult to remove. I thought about trying to find a beaker brush to get at the insides of the bottle. I also found a page at the Nalgene corporate site with cleaning suggestions. I didn't have lemon juice, baking soda, or bleach as the page suggested, so I thought I would try a little vinegar. I poured a quarter-cup of plain vinegar into a particularly crufty bottle, and, wow, the scale disappeared almost instantly. I added water until it was about half-full, and shook it vigorously, which quickly removed any remaining scale.

So, if you need to clean your Nalgene or more-reasonably-priced polycarbonate bottle, use a little vinegar.

so many widgets

Dang, Apple moves fast! I submitted a battery exchange request on Friday, and a new (hopefully non-exploding) battery for my iBook just arrived. I thought it might have been shipped from a depot in Austin, but, no, the battery was shipped overnight from California. I see a lot of complaints about Apple's service and support on various blogs, but I wonder if Apple users just expect a higher level of quality. In comparison, my last laptop caught fire, and, when I called their customer service, the seemed completely unconcerned.

In other news, I installed OS X "Tiger" over the weekend. I thought I would wait for the reviews to come back before taking the risk of losing files or gunking up my computer. Actually, I wasn't going to bother with it at all until my students told me a "bare" version is available at the campus computer store for $15, which is a substantial savings over even the $75 student license.

Installation was completely straightforward for me. I think I was thinking of all of the hassles involved in upgrading different versions of Windows, but this is more like a Service Pack, albeit a $129 Service Pack, than a new version of the OS. Unlike upgrading Windows, there aren't any funky new interfaces I have to learn right away, and all of my files are in the right places.

Tiger has given me a modest performance improvement, and that alone is probably worth $15. The two major new features, as everyone has said, are Dashboard and Spotlight.

Dashboard is pretty gimmicky; I installed Konfabulator when I first got my iBook to keep track of memory use, but the application itself is a memory hog. I've got a system monitor running in Dashboard, but pushing "F8" when I want to check memory isn't the most convenient or accurate way to monitor performance. The best thing I've found, is the "Movie Locater" plugin, which will be nice when I want to quickly look up a picture in class. I tried to make a similar widget for searching the UT Library Catalog, but my attention span ran out before I figured out how to get it to work. I'm sure Prentiss or whomever could figure out the code in 10 minutes. I'll make a logo if you do the code...

I can see why people are excited about Spotlight, but I don't usually have a hard time keeping track of my files, except for images, and, unless there's some kind of metadata system for images, I don't see how it will help. But this leads me to the features I wish were included. First, I wish that Apple would include thumbnail views of images in the OS, a la Windows XP, so I don't need to open iPhoto to see thumbnails. In addition, I had read rumors that Tiger would include NTFS support, but I am still unable to write and delete on my old NTFS volumes I've put in external chassis.

Finally, the Safari browser has some nice additions, including the ability to view .pdf documents in the browser. I thought it was a hassle when Safari would download .pdfs to the desktop, and then open them in Preview. This is certainly an improvement. On the other hand, I don't like the fact that when I right-click on the "back" button, it brings up a context menu for customizing the browser bar. I want to see the last ten pages. I know I can left-click-and-hold to get that context menu, but I wish I could switch it back to the old context menu. Finally, Safari's history is still that stupid scrolling menu - I want a tree interface like the one used in Firefox or even IE.

Yikes, that was quite the geek-out, but those of you who haven't seen me in a while, you now know I'm really turning into an Apple guy. I guess I've owned five computers in my life, and three of them have been Apples, so maybe I was just flirting with PC-ness for the last five years.

coinage prerogative

The introduction of this paper "Anarchy and Source Code..." has a passage that gave me pause:

I appreciate the point, but Stallman is certainly scruffy-looking and perhaps not the most grounded person you'll see. At least he didn't use Eric "Geeks with Guns" Raymond as an example

no setup

A New York Times story says that jokes are dead. The article contends that they've vanished both from professional comedy and from daily life. I'm probably too young to remember when jokes were shared in the workplace, but, reading the article, I thought, "I told a joke on Friday."

I was drinking beers with some folks from the J-School, listening to a staff member reminisce about her youth in Austin. I said, "Hey Lou, have you heard that joke 'How many Austinites does it take to screw in a light bulb?'"
Lou said, "No. How many does it take?"
"Three, one to screw in the light bulb, and two to talk about how the old one was so much better."
Perhaps that wasn't canonical joke-telling, but I was well-received. The article also mentions "Bob Newhart's imaginary telephone monologues," which I thought of not too long ago. One day when I was teaching my "Intro to Digital Media" class, I began an impromptu telephone monologue to explain the latency and overall poor experience of using Voice-over-IP services circa 2001. As the class rolled with laughter, I wondered, "Have these kids ever heard Bob Newhart's old skits?"

I only know of Newhart's old skits from other kid's dad's comedy records and Dr. Demento. By the early 90s, when I was in high school, comedy records were a dead, if not dying, media genre. The story mentions the Internet, but I suspect other changes in media may have led to the death of jokes. In the eighties, it seemed like many cable channels used stand-up comedians to fill up their day, which may have diminished the impact of retelling jokes

internal short

I just saw this item about Apple's decision to recall certain iBook and PowerBook batteries, and, wouldn't you know, the battery on my machine is in the range of serial numbers recalled. I suppose my computer was no less dangerous a week ago, but I'm glad I didn't quit using the battery while the semester was wrapping up. I used this online form to submit a battery exchange request. Apple says they will ship a new battery out to me, and I am supposed to return my battery using the prepaid mailer. They don't have an ETA, but I hope it doesn't take long.

synched visuals

Apparently, there's someone blogging about Caribou with even more fervor than I. Through my referrer logs, I found Caribou Stuff, a blog devoted to everyone's favorite Canadian electronic project.

Caribou Stuff provides some useful information. At the show Friday night, Matthew and I were blown away by the animation projected during the show. The blog tells us that it's the work of a design group called delicious 9, which made all of the videos shown on the tour, as well as a video for Max Tundra's "Lysine." I agreed with Matthew when he said he would buy a DVD of the music and animation at the show, but apparently no DVD is currently available. However, the animation for "Yeti" is viewable online. It's not one of the freakier videos shown, but it's a gooder.

against the hegemonic order

An interview with University of Oklahoma English professor Vince Leitch came in from one of my listservs this morning. I did my undergrad in English at OU, so I was interested in what kind of work faculty do up there. Reading the interview, I was a little surprised I didn't take a class with Leitch, since I graduated on a "Critical Theory/Cultural Texts" track the department offered at the time, and his interests are apparently in text-y kinds of theory.

One thing he says caught my attention, "Postmodern interdisciplines are generally housed in underfunded and nomadic programs or institutes, not departments." Reading that, I wondered, "Is media studies a 'postmodern interdiscipline'?" I'd argue that the media studies program where I'm pursuing a Ph.D. is underfunded, but it's certainly in an established department. He later lists media studies as an interdiscipline, along with usual suspects like women's studies, queer studies, and postcolonial studies.

Despite being in a dedicated media studies department, I do often feel that kind of interdisciplinary anxiety, feeling I don't quite fit in anywhere. As someone who primarily studies Internet media, it can be kind of frustrating working with people who mostly study television and film. (On the other hand, the film grad students often complain that we don't offer enough film studies classes, folding film into classes about larger theoretical topics.) And what people do study ICTs generally approach it from a social science perspective, while I'm more drawn to humanistic methods. I know myself well enough that I don't do well with a lot of structure, so I think I am happier working out how to approach my interests on my happy, but occasionally that anxiety creeps in, particularly when I think about finding a job.

i live cement

I really enjoyed last night's Caribou show. In the past, I've gone to see my favorite band play, then walked away disappointed, not liking the band anymore. This was not the case with Caribou. The second song they played was my favorite, "Bees," then followed it with my favorite song off of Up In Flames, "Bijoux," I was really excited, then worried that Caribou is like totally mainstream now, and my favorite songs are fan favorites, with jocks pumping them out of their Jeeps in the Jenks High School parking lot. I hope not.

When I think of electronic projects like Caribou playing live, I usually think of automated rhythm tracks playing while the artist sings or plays guitar. There was certainly live guitar - Mr. Snaith had a touring guitarist - but all of the drums were live, but the vocals were canned, which was certainly an interesting approach to a live set. Snaith played guitar on the first song, then played kit and keyboards for most of the show. He's quite a drummer; I was really impressed when he and the touring drummer busted out polyrhythms I assumed were programed when I listened to the records.

One complaint I had about the show was that the sound levels seemed a little too high. Much of the time songs I knew well sounded muddy and distorted, and, even with earplugs, the music was about two notches louder than what I would listen to with headphones. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I go to way too many shows where the music is way too loud. I'm 29 years old and I'm already losing my hearing. Granted, this is primarily from cranking up the volume on my headphones to cover up subway noise, but I worry about the younger kids at shows who aren't thinking about tinnitus.

familiar and congenial space

The New York Times has a story on UT's plans to move all of the books out of the Undergraduate Library and use the remaining space for a big, honkin' computer lab. I've joked before that the UGL has about as many books as my high school library, but the story notes, "experts said it was symbolic for a top educational institution like Texas to empty a library of books." I can't say that I'm sorry to see the UGL collection be dispersed; it's pretty frustrating to go the PCL, and realize that one of the books I want (usually a comic book) is over at the UGL. Hopefully the UGL comics collection will move into PCL, rather than the Fine Arts Library, which an even longer trek from the College of Communications.

On my campus tour in high school, our sorority-girl tour guide, told us, "This is the Undergraduate Library over here. People call it 'the UGLi,' and it is ugly." Now, I completely agree that the UGLi is indeed ugly, but in my three years at UT, I have never heard anyone refer to it as "the UGLi."

kiss the wiener

I probably should have stopped watching this when I saw the stars-n-bars in the third shot, but Killfloor points to a video segment of a "wiener dog" race in Buda, TX, which is just south of Austin. Although the woman who says "You can kiss the wench for a dollar or you can kiss the wiener dog for a dollar," is pretty frightening, but not nearly as frightening as the fact that they parade the confederate battle flag in parades down in Buda. Also, is the name "Dachshund" not in the vocabulary of Budans?

Of course, I attend graduate school at a university where statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis still stand on the main mall. Yay Texas!

liberty not price

I'm working on a term paper on Wikipedia and it's Countering Systemic Bias project. One of the sections I'm working on deals with the ideology that seems to pervade open-source software development as well as projects like Wikipedia, but I'm sort of at a loss of what to call it "Open Source Ideology" seems to make the most sense to people with a casual understanding of the issue, but because of the tensions between "Free Software" and "open source" partisans, it's not quite appropriate. From the point of view of Free Software advocates, "open source" means corporate co-optation of the development process, so it's probably not the best term to use.

I frankly don't like the GNU folks (I once got a tongue-lashing from Brad Kuhn of the Free Software Foundation back when I edited a newsletter called "Enterprise Linux") so I'm hesitant to use their language as well. I've seen the acronym "FOSS" for "Free/Open-Source Software,' but FOSS will make absolutely no sense to my prof or nearly anyone else in my media studies milieu. Besides, I think the word "open" best expresses the fundamental goals of Free Software, Creative Commons, Free Culture, and the like. I think I finally settle on something like "'Open' Ideology" or "Ideology of Openness" to describe what I'm taking about.

The American Studies department is hosting a grad student conference in the fall with the theme "Defining 'American' Values," and I'm going to submit an abstract about "The Ideology of Openness" - or whatever I wind up calling it - to the conference. I talked to one of the organizers, and she said that they're as interested in subcultural values as well as the dominant ideology, so I just need to come up with a name. What prompted me to post on this topic was the realization that I've never read Eric S. Raymond's Cathedral and the Bazaar cover-to-cover. I should probably sit down with this book before I start working on the abstract.

opportunity to confuse

The new issue of Stay Free! has an interview with "Bill," who takes credit for starting the flash mob phenomenon in New York City. One the issues that he seems to want to dodge is what, if any political aspects there may to flash mobbing. When the craze hit two summers ago, I felt a little distressed that all of this organizational effort went into a purportedly apolitical project; at the time, I suggested it was a celebration of technology. "Bill" says that, while the original New York mobs were a statement on scenesterism, mobs in other cities took on a political component. For example, a mob in Minneapolis seemed to raise issues of public space.

Certainly there are other, more overt, ways to recuperate public space such as Reclaim the Streets! or the Berlin Love Parade, but "Bill" suggests that overtly political messages might have turned off many participants.

fun with samplers

I am so excited about the Caribou show Friday that I can't think about anything else. I don't think I've been this excited to see a show since I was an undergrad. I feel like a huge dork, but my constructive side says, "run with it! When was the last time you felt excited about anything?" I looked on the Austin Chronicle's recommended shows to see if Caribou was listed. Indeed, it is a recommended show; I hope it's not all crowded. The preview says to expect "promises dueling drum kits, synchronized visuals, and walls of guitar on stage," which has me saying "hell yeah!"

Another one of the recommended shows is the Sightings show Monday at Church of the Friendly Ghost. I'm not familiar with Sightings, but my pals from Numbers on the Mast are playing, so, of course, I'll be there. I hope I can get my grading done beforehand, so I can see Sightings' "feedback drift/burst/smash/crash on top of addictive Liquid Liquid-like groove." I wonder why the Chronicle didn't mention Numbers on the Mast; they've recommended NotM shows before. Maybe they don't want to overhype NotM, and create a Spoon-like backlash.

charging discharging

Chris pointed me to a rather useful website, batteryuniversity.com, which, as the name suggests, provides useful information about how various types of rechargeable batteries work. This page really helped me understand how batteries lose their life, and the site also has a great table offering the dos and don'ts of battery operation. I can't say that I'm the most responsible battery user, so I found it validating to know that there's little you can do to extend the life of the lithium batteries used in notebook computers and video cameras. The site says a lithium battery "Loses capacity due to aging whether used or not." On the other hand, I was not aware that nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries are as susceptible to "memory" as the older style of nickel-cadmium batteries. I use these for my digital still camera and mp3, so I will be sure to cycle them all the way down before charging them.

Chris also gave me two free tickets to Friday's Caribou concert, which is so awesome of him. I was already excited about seeing them - I haven't seen a touring band since SXSW - and free tickets makes it that much better. Thanks Chris!

impressive random events

StreetTech points to a page of freely downloadable paper-based games while reminiscing about the good ol' days of paper gaming in the eighties and early ninties. One of the games that piqued my interest is Battle of Seattle, which is a simulation game about the N30 uprising. I suppose it isn't the first game to invoke the memory of Seattle; the N30-inspired video game State of Emergency came out a few years back.

The entry for Battle of Seattle pointed to a list of games called "Games for Hippies, Commies, Radicals and Subversives." I don't think the creators of the list are self-described radicals, considering the tone of the introduction. Moreover, one game, Bell-Bottomed Badassses on the Mean Streets of Funk, rehashes racist stereotypes from blaxploitation film. Many of the games on the list relate to drug use, which may appeal to some activists, and I might add that the computer game DopeWars is surprisingly fun. As a kid, I had one of the games on the list, Steve Jackson's classic Illuminati, which we discussed in Janet Staiger's "Historiography" class last semester. Maybe I'll be able to track it down the next time I'm at my parents' house; it seems like a game that media studies grad students could get into.

Growing up, these games could really take hold of my imagination, but I remember feeling disappointed actually playing the games. Game mechanics were often too complex, particularly for middle school boys, and one game I saved for months for, Outdoor Survival, was just plain boring. The art for Gammarauders had me fantasizing for days - I loved the heavily armored penguin - but I don't think I ever even played the game. It seemed like you needed more than two players to enjoy these games, and I seemed to socialize best in one-on-one settings. I've often joked that I lacked the social skills to play Dungeons and Dragons, and perhaps that is why I never became an Über Goober.

new tricks

The auto-correct feature in Word for OS X is mighty nice, fixing my spelling errors without requiring me to pull up a context menu, but they seem to have forgotten a correction that would be so handy for me. I spend much more time writing in HTML than I do in Word, so I habitually punch "<i>," when I want to italicize a title, rather than open-apple-I. As a result, I frequently look back at my writing and realize it's full of HTML markup, rather than properly formatted. It seems like it wouldn't be so difficult for Microsoft to auto-correct this mistake, and I imagine there are more than a few geeks like me who don't make the conceptual switch between HTML authoring and word processing very quickly.

pulled away from processing

Although Urban Outfitters began as a funky surplus store near the University of Pennsylvania in the sixties, it's now known as an early co-opter of youth trends. I suppose young college kids with an independent spirit might see it as a one-stop-shop for hip clothes and decor, but I doubt anyone in my circles would regard it as alternative. Regardless, the store engages in some pretty icky business practices like the "Voting is for Old People" T-shirt that appeared in 2004 and now a series of relocation deals.

According to Philadelphia City Paper, Urban Outfitters is moving their call center from downtown Philly to a rural area of South Carolina, in order to take advantage of cheaper labor and a 15-year tax abatement granted by the state. The story notes that the company already had plans to move it's headquarters from the Rittenhouse Square area - which is probably the most expensive area of the city - to the old Navy Yard, a deal which certainly came with enticements from the city. Although the company is keeping it's headquarters in Philly, it seems like a stab in the back to take many of its entry-level jobs out of the city.

someone's in the kitchen

OK, I am positively obsessed with the song "Bees" off the new Caribou record The Milk of Human Kindness. It sounds like something I've heard before, like a song I have in my record library, but I can't think of what it might be. Can anyone think of a song with a shuffling guitar riff and a diaphanous horn line on a record I have? I don't have a huge record collection, but Prentiss and Erich are the only folks who have been around my music in the past few years, so this is perhaps a silly question.

Also, does anyone know if the guitar line is a sample or if it's something he recorded and added a layer of tape hiss? Dang, it's a good song.

In other news, I've been a bad fan and downloaded the new Sleater-Kinney album before it's release. Oh, but, it rips. It rips, and it is loud. Not loud in the way I typically think of Sleater-Kinney, but sludgy Mudhoney-loud or Black-Sabbath-loud. I love it.

budget versus needed features

Some of my students have asked me about the difference between Final Cut Pro HD and the lower-cost Final Cut Express HD, and Apple's website is profoundly uninformative on this issue. I'm not sure if it's a case of upselling customers to a product they don't need or simply poor information design, but the Princeton campus computer store has a great page devoted to the issue.

At $499 for Pro and $249 for Express, student licenses, it's something of a task to justify the extra cost, but a few features missing in Express make it unattractive for students interested in serious media creation, in particular the lack of timecode support and the lack of keyframing for effects make Express only appropriate for lightweight use.

On the other hand, I do my video editing in our lovely Studio 4B - I'm not particularly excited by the prospect of editing video on a 12" iBook screen. Some students may have fancy Mac desktop systems at home, but, if that's the case, they probably won't begrudge spending the extra $250 for the Pro version.

In related news, I went to the site for UT's campus computer store tonight to find a cheap license for OS X Tiger, and discovered that its URL is campuscomputer.com. On one hand, it makes sense that a computer store for one of the largest campuses in the country would grab that URL, but, on the other hand, it smacks of that Texan presumptuousness.

alleged incidents

Vietnam Views is an interesting project in popular memory. It's a website that allows users to post their recollection of their experiences during the Vietnam War. I get the impression that the site is largely geared toward veterans and their families to record their memories of the conflict. The site uses folksonomic tags to categorize posts, and, as yet, there are not tags dealing with protest.

I just ran across a book dealing with popular memory and Vietnam, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke, which interrogates the "memory" of anti-war protesters spitting on soldiers returning from the war. Considering how frequently the right deploys this powerful image - it was presented as fact by one of my elementary school teachers - I would like to know the source of this memory. In a related paper, Lembcke writes:

So, it seems that the protesters weren't the ones doing the spitting. In the paper online, some of Lembcke's was unfamiliar and a little questionable, but I would like to read the book and look at the evidence he presents.

vocal and demanding

I'm intrigued by two new ventures that use podcasting in commercial radio. For readers unfamiliar with podcasting, it's the practice of uploading audio files containing a radio show or segment. The software iPodder enables end users to automatically download new shows from a given source to their iPods. Some folks online have hailed podcasting as an alternative to corporatized radio, but, of course, you have to be relatively affluent to have the equipment and skills needed to enjoy podcasts. I have spent little time listening to podcasts, but I suspect that they're much like blogs, where much of the content reflects the corporate media. For example, this how-to video about podcasting features a rant against universal health care.

Although podcasting is seen as an alternative to commercial radio, its interest is already piqued. Today's New York Times has a story about how former MTV DJ Adam Curry has inked a deal with Sirius satellite radio to assemble a daily four hour show based on podcast content. Curry is one of the first podcasters on the 'net, so I can see the project as the payoff for hard work, but I wonder what range of voices his show will feature.

On the other hand, I find KYOU radio a little more troubling. KYOU will actually broadcast podcasts over the AM airwaves. However, the San Francisco station is owned by Infinity, whose parent company is Viacom. Rather than a project in independent media or "open source radio," this seems to be more a project in giving free content to the second-largest radio company in the country. Moreover, if you look at the design of the KYOU site, its clear that they're appropriating the visual rhetoric of progressive social movements such as graffiti, a fist which is often used as a symbol of resistance, and concentric curves that look suspiciously like the IndyMedia logo. I suppose in an age when Che appears on Vuitton handbags, it should be no surprise radical imagery is appropriated by corporate media, but I hope no one mistakes KYOU for grassroots media.

meaingful output

This tongue-in-cheek internet history timeline came in over a listserv last night. It's not as funny as I would hope, but it might be worth checking out. What is funny and informative is Barry Wellman's "My Forty Years of HCI," which I've been meaning to post for over a year now. Here's a sample:

When we were undergrads, my friend Tom and I went to the bursar's office to pick up our scholarship checks. Tom was about to fold his check and put it in his wallet, when I said, "Oh, you shouldn't fold checks like that."
"Really, why not?"
"Oh, my dad repairs check-sorting machines, and he says that folding these checks lead to a lot of jams he has to fix."
Tom folded his check, and slyly said, "Well, I'm keeping your dad in a job."

millitary intelligence

It's already on BoingBoing, but this little bit of technical "wizardry" bears repeating. When the Department of Defense finally released photographs of flag-draped coffins after an FOIA request, they famously redacted names and blacked-out faces purportedly for privacy reasons. However, a user with a modicum of technical knowledge discovered that you can recover the redacted personnel names simply by opening the military-issue pdf files in Acrobat and pasting the text into Word.

views from right to left

I watched Bob Roberts last weekend, and I found an interesting user comment related to the previous post. One commenter responds to the suggestion that George Bush resembles Tim Robbins' character with an interesting excavation of popular memory:

I am not a Bill Clinton fan, and I will give her the point that Clinton is a charmer, but her assertion that Bush is hated by the press and Clinton got a free ride is demonstrably out of step with history. Contrast press treatment of Whitewater or the Lewinsky scandal with Bush's assertions about weapons of mass destruction or his National Guard service. Regardless, what is more interesting is how the user presented these claims as fact. I would be reluctant to call this popular memory, if I hadn't heard enough people contend that the press went easier on Clinton. I wonder how this memory is propagated - is this an assertion Rush Limbaugh repeats? Bush's unilaterally antagonistic relationship with the press fosters the idea that the media is out to get him, but how do people remember Monica Lewinsky without remembering the endless press coverage of the affair?

Excavating my own popular memory of the Clinton administration, I couldn't remember Osama Bin Laden's 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa when they were cited in news coverage after 9/11. I thought back to that summer, and, although I was in college and working nearly full time, I read the news routinely, so I should have remembered the terrorist attacks. But all I remembered was the Lewinsky scandal and, to a lesser extent, the market collapses in Asia. The Lewinsky scandal so utterly dominated the media that terrorist attacks in the global south were merely a footnote in the news.

the notion of balance

The New York TImes just posted a story about public efforts by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to "correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias" at PBS. Not surprisingly, chairman Tomlinson points to "NOW With Bill Moyers" as evidence of the network's leftward leaning. I'd certainly agree that "NOW" is one of the most politically left shows on TV anywhere, but it only airs once a week, while the conservative "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" airs each night, which isn't even to mention "Wall Street Week" or the Tucker Carlson vehicle "Unfiltered."

The article says Tomlinson secretly hired a consultant to perform review the content of "NOW" and political learnings of "NOW" guests. After the review, Tomlinson concluded the network is too pink. I'm guessing he didn't do an ideological analysis of "Wall Street Week."

Using "NOW" to claim that PBS as a network tilts to left seems disingenuous. Although Bill Moyers may have been hated by conservative, he's left the show, and his replacement David Brancaccio came from the PRI business show "Marketwatch." In addition, PBS added Carlson's "Unfiltered" during Moyers tenure specifically to balance out the perceived liberalism of "NOW."

The article says that Tomlinson does not intend to eliminate public affairs programming, but it seems difficult to divorce investigative reporting or pieces critical of domestic affairs without the perception of a "liberal" or anti-institutional bias. The story quotes a former CPB president saying Tomlinson wants to "help the people in public broadcasting understand why some people in the conservative movement think PBS is hostile to them." I frankly want to understand why many people in the conservative movement are hostile to PBS.