cnewmark

Watch actual big history being made in real-time at #tcamp09

It's being twittered right now at the Sunlight Foundation Transparency Camp right now, check out the Twitter feed for #tcamp09.

ReadTheBill.org: look at legislation before passed

More good government on the way, ReadTheBill.org is about:

ReadTheBill.org is a commonsense solution - we want Congress to post all bills online for 72 hours before they are debated. That gives members of Congress - and you - three days to read legislation and consider how it could potentially affect each of us in our daily lives. A 72 hour rule would also give you a chance to let your senators and representative in Congress know what you like, or don't like, about a bill before they vote.

sign the petition!

My guest DJ spot at KCRW

Hey, the folks at KCRW invited me to select some songs and play 'em, and not surprisingly, it's heavy on Leonard Cohen:

• Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
• Lou Reed - Magic & Loss
• Leonard Cohen - Anthem
• Leonard Cohen - Democracy
• Sophie B. Hawkins - We Are One Body

You can find it here. The transcript to the interview is there, for your amusement.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark proudly proclaims himself a nerd, though he’s left the pocket protector by the wayside for now. Not surprisingly, he steers away from pop in favor of poetry in his music choices. He chooses tracks with themes of transformation – both personal and political– and a love song. Craigslist, which started as a fun side project in Craig's living room, has grown into one of the busiest sites on the internet and he still is active on the site as customer service representative.

I think I shoulda tried to include Kinky Friedman and others.

A prayer from Democracy:

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming ... ... to the U.S.A.

I figure this prayer is also prophetic; perhaps a trifle dated as of last November fourth.

Drawing down in Iraq means a surge of returning veterans

Hey, people commit to our entire country when they join the military, so I feel we should commit to real support for military veterans. I take that personally.

Here's Paul Rieckhoff from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America:

Paul Rieckhoff said, "Whether it is 16 months or 18 months, the strain on our troops and their families will be tremendous. What no one is talking about is how our country will support these tens of thousands of troops when they do come home.  The President's new plan will create a "surge" of new veterans coming home in 2009 and 2010.  Our duty to these brave men and women doesn't end when they leave the battlefield and America must do more to support them as they return home. The new GI Bill must be properly implemented, mental health resources must be expanded, and we must account for the toll the economic crisis will have on new veterans and their families. No veteran's 'welcome home' should come in the form of an unemployment check.

One way you can help is to get the word out regarding the veterans' social networking site, CommunityofVeterans.org.

I'm a plastic pocket protector guy myself

From Leah Garchik's column.

Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has ordered hats from Interstellar Propeller in Berkeley for President Obama's economic advisers, to whom the president refers as "propellerheads." The hats say Propellerhead (which usually means software engineers); one says Chief Propellerhead. And the order was augmented with a few for the Obama girls.

I've been meeting with my nerdish cohort here in Washington, and perhaps this is a call to action.

That's "libertarian moderate" not "libertarian pirate"

... just correcting a parsing error...

More re Leonard Cohen, and a prayer

Hey, today's NY Times talks more about Leonard: On the Road, for Reasons Practical and Spiritual. His songs are the closest thing I have to a liturgy:

About the meaning of those songs, Mr. Cohen is diffident and elusive. Many are, he acknowledges, “muffled prayers,” but beyond that he is not eager to reveal much.

“It’s difficult to do the commentary on the prayer,” he said. “I’m not a Talmudist, I’m more the little Jew who wrote the Bible,” a reference to a line in “The Future,” a song he released in 1992. “I feel it doesn’t serve the enterprise to really examine it from outside the moment.”

I don't know how to articulate what this means to me, so from The Land Of Plenty:

For the innermost decision
That we cannot but obey
For what's left of our religion
I lift my voice and pray:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth ... some day.

Learning from Obama's Online Success

Hey, at TechPresident.com, Colin Delany just started a multi-part series Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond which is really good.

for example, the following, which applies to many online enterprises:

Social media lessons from the Obama campaign

• Start early
• Build to scale
• Innovate where necessary; do everything else incrementally better
• Make it easy to find, forward and act
• Pick where you want to play
• Channel online enthusiasm into specific, targeted activities that further the campaign's goals
• Integrate online advocacy into every element of the campaign

More progress from microfinance efforts in Palestine

(With the encourgagement of the Israeli, Palestinian, and US governments... see My Marshall Plan for the West Bank).

Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:03:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Kiva
To: craig@craigslist.org
Subject: Your Kiva Credit is now available for use

Hi Craig Newmark,

We'd like to give you a repayment update on the loans you've made through Kiva.

A total of $100.00 has been repaid over the past month!

Below is the repayment update on your Kiva Portfolio:

Muhand Alzaneen in Palestine (Activity: General Store)

You Loaned: $825.00

Newly Repaid: $68.75

Total Repaid So Far: $68.75 (8.33% of your loan)

View loan profile

Eman Abu Zeiter in Palestine (Activity: Office Supplies)

You Loaned: $375.00

Newly Repaid: $31.25

Total Repaid So Far: $31.25 (8.33% of your loan)

View loan profile

BrownBelly the squirrel

(for all of you squirrel fans; a view directly over my screen in my home office.)