Wired (original) and Dan Gillmor (original) just did stories on OhmyNews, which sounds pretty revolutionary. It’s an online newspaper (with a print component, but that’s a fish of a different color) that’s 90% written by volunteer reporters. Ah, you say, it’s Metafilter. Yes, except that the “citizen-reporters” file stories which are then checked and approved by professional editors. Really good stories earn the authors a smallish fee. In other words, it’s news blogging with professional editors. Compare this to Dave Winer’s optimism (original) about bloggers; note that OhmyNews is in fact having a real effect on Presidential elections in South Korea. In fact, Jon Bonne nailed it (original). “Professional journalism continues to exist because the public has demonstrated its need for two things: truth and convenience.” OhmyNews is a way to satisfy those two needs while still opening up a door for the amateur reporter.

In a fit of optimism, I added a Movable Type hack to prevent duplicate comments (original). Let me know if you have any trouble adding comments.

My pal Rob recently uncovered something fairly bizarre. It’s a 1971 novel called The Invisibles, about — quoting Rob — …a two-fisted psycho-pharmacologist, a kind of Indiana Jones meets Timothy Leary type, who acquires psychic powers from experiments with psychotropic drugs, and then uses those powers to fight a globe-spanning conspiracy of evil, and also to have a lot of uninhibited 1971-style sex. The author’s other books include Society And The Assassin….A Background Book on Political Murder. King Mob was here. ...

OK. this post is just beyond the pale. The backstory: Kelley Ferguson is a stupid idiot who faked a terrorist threat in order to get out of a cruise with her parents. Missed her boyfriend. Totally stupid. But how do you get from there to blaming Bush? “And many people, wavering between fear of the unknown and the all too casual attittude eminating from the White House, can treat a terrorist attack as a prank.” ...

Dylan Kidd came out of nowhere with Roger Dodger, and sometimes it shows. The pacing is off, for example. But man, I’m a sucker for the rhythms of language, and Kidd has ‘em down pat here. The plot? New York, nightlife, a pretty amazingly cynical copywriter who has only his sense of language to be proud about. Womanizing. Said copywriter’s nephew. Lessons learned. The acting’s good. The nephew, at sixteen, nails being a tense sixteen year old geek, right down to the expectation of dot-com riches without a college degree. Campbell Scott is very good as Roger; he gives enough to let us care about him, which is pretty crucial if you’re going to be playing an asshole. Oh, and Isabella Rosselini is so very perfect. Worth it for her alone, actually. ...

Mike has a lovely rememberance of June Carter Cash.

WISH 47 is Learning Your Lesson (original), as follows: Name one lesson you learned in gaming that you will (hopefully) never have to learn again. So mine is “Differentiate.” I had an awful problem early in my gaming career; I tended to see other people doing cool stuff and I wanted to do the same cool stuff. Self-esteem issues, probably. At one point a friend pointed out in no uncertain terms that I was stepping on her character’s schtick. ...

Just for reference, this map shows the proposed Texas federal districting, and this map shows the current Texas federal districting. I can see some pretty weird looking districts in the latter (check out 15, for example), but the former certainly doesn’t do any better. In fact, 15 is worse. You can’t see it at this scale, but the proposed district 15 has a mile wide strip along the bottom of the state that connects it to a little bubble of territory under district 23.

I’m not sure if this is ironic or not, but Bush’s appointees have made a strong pro-gun control statement. In Iraq, of course. Gun ownership is, for the nonce, illegal there. “Rise up against Saddam! Then drop your weapons.” It’s aimed at looters, of course, but I find I’m still amused. Gun ownership is only a sacred right if the people who own guns agree with you, I guess. More cheerful news: Umm Qasr was turned over to a local council the other day. Good for the Brits. They did have the advantage of working with a relatively small town. I’ve heard that they brought in actual policemen to train a local police force, which seems clever to me.

Saw it, liked it. In brief: Visually impressive. Nice to see the Wachowskis showing off their ability to do eroticism again (go see Bound). Clever enough conceptually. Fun villains. Very good car chase scene. Harold Perrineau, who is always a pleasure. Second act of a third act play, which always has problems. But good solid fun and I’m excited for the third one.