1417 by Jeff Hess
That’s what Jeff Jarvis advocates this morning. I like the idea a lot. He wants a task force within every news organization consisting of its top reporters whose job it is to put Fear in the heart of every complacent publisher, editor and curmudgeon out there who thinks that everything is just fine, thank you very much.
Writes Jarvis:
…the first thing I think a newspaper should do is report about the future of news. Assign your best reporters and editors – the Bejesus Task Force – to get all the prognostications about the future and all the data about the present – about where the audience and dollars are going, about new competition, about new technologies, about best and worst practices, about new definitions of news – and bring it together in a report for the entire staff. Make the assignment clear: Find the most frightening stuff you can. Now is the time to face every devil. Leave none unearthed.
This is for the entire staff. All of this is. If you do this just for management – or just editors, for that matter – it will not work. And it”s not just for the paper. You need to take that task-force report about the future of news and print it in the paper – and online, of course – and ask the people to tell you what to do.
It’s a start. Fear is a horrible motivator, unless you want somebody to jump instead of discussing the point to deaht.
My Soundtrack: When The Sun Goes Down by The Artic Monkeys on WOXY.
Posted in Clifton And The Plain Dealer | No Comments »
1012 by Jeff Hess
Listening now to President George Bush addressing the nation I’m struck at how he’s flailing for something safe to talk about. He first attacks the Senate for holding up the Patriot Act over concerns of civil liberty violations and then quickly switches the topic to the economy, and anything else he can think of, to distract voters. He sounds panicked.
Posted in Espresso Shot, Impeach Bush | 2 Comments »
0830 by Jeff Hess
I once had a long conversation with the owner of the Sushi operation that rents space inside of Heinan’s and Zagara’s. We talked about making Sushi and how calming both the preparation and eating could be. I’ve eaten in many Sushi places over the years and watching master chefs do their work is a simple joy. Then there’s this.
[Update — 1024 — I found the above video via Japan Pundit. After watching it and enjoying a good laugh, I noted the running time (some eight minutes or so) and recalled that the video George and Slash food had referenced was about the same time. This, of course, led to a Duh! moment when I discovered that I had indeed watched the referenced video. The lesson, make sure you know what you’re commenting on before you comment.]
Posted in Humor | No Comments »
0744 by Jeff Hess
I’m sitting next to the fireplace in a very comfortable chair with a great, elbow-high side table at Dewey’s Fair Trade Coffee on Shaker Square. There are still a few bugs in the system — Dennis is coming today to tweak the espresso machine — but the decor is great, the bakery is in the back, the wifi is free and the coffee is from Phoenix. Check it out.
Posted in Espresso Shot | No Comments »
0729 by Jeff Hess
The Mike and Fran saga continues from San Miguel de Allende with a moment on the bus. In Cleveland (or New York this week) the scene would have turned ugly fast, but the rest of the world is not populated with self-important Type A’s whose needs must be met or civilization will end. Writes Fran:
I”m on the local bus, just a couple of stops from the end of the run. We”re full. All seats taken, some people standing.
The traffic backed up, we”re at a complete stop. The bus driver recognizes one of his buddies on the street and calls him over. Big smiles, the driver leaning out his window, the two of them chat enthusiastically.
The traffic clears – but we”re still standing still as the driver and his friend exchange phone numbers. I”m impatient and look around at the other passengers. Surely those standing will be even more annoyed. But no, no one seems to mind a bit. I struggle to shrug off my irritation and work my way back into a Mexico frame of mind.
In a minute or so we are on our way.
Yes we are. If we would spend more time relishing the journey and less agnonizing over the destination, we would all feel better.
My Soundtrack: Beat Surrender by The Jam on WOXY.
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0400 by Jeff Hess
First he didn’t plunge us into a war that daily costs the lives of American service men and women because of weapons of mass destruction. Now he claims that he never suggested a tie between Saddam Hussein and the 11 September attack. How big a lie does our president have to tell before we start impeachment proceedings?
Posted in Impeach Bush | 2 Comments »
1911 by Jeff Hess
Ever since I read Steal This Book back in the ’70s I’ve been a huge fan of guerrilla theatre. The idea is to do something so unexpected, so outrageous and so compelling that anyone who is a witness or who hears about your action can’t resist being touched by your message. It’s something missing in current protests, I think.
Posted in Espresso Shot | No Comments »
1727 by Jeff Hess
Sherry Chandler picked this one up. Anyone who would voluntarily sleep in one of these needs to spend serious time on a very different couch, like the one in your friendly psychiatrist”s office. When did the land of the free and the home of the brave become the land of the confined and the home of the spineless? Do you feel safer four years later?
Posted in Impeach Bush | 2 Comments »
1343 by Jeff Hess
Since I began my Bush Lied drumbeat last year, my conservative friends keep asking for a single, verifiable lie. Now the Congressional Research Service has documented 102 lies about the intelligence on Iraq given President George Bush and that given to Congress. If you tell the same lie 102 times, are you a liar? Thanks Roldo.
Posted in Impeach Bush | 2 Comments »
1246 by Jeff Hess
I’ve interviewed some important business people in my career. I once even got time with a presidential candidate, but I can’t begin to imagine what it must feel like to have a one-on-one with a sitting President. Jim Lehrer got that chance and I agree with Slate’s Michael Brus, he dropped the ball. Here’s how Brus reports the exchange:
JIM LEHRER: I mean, [the wiretapping story is] on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, every newspaper in America today, and it’s going-it’s the main story of the day. So-
PRESIDENT BUSH: It’s not the main story of the day.
JIM LEHRER: Well, but I mean in terms of the way it’s being covered-
PRESIDENT BUSH: The main story of the day is the Iraqi election.
JIM LEHRER: Right, and I’m going to get to that.
It’s almost as if the President is saying: Listen, Lehrer, we gave you the talking points memo now stick to it or I’m out of here. Brus weave a little fantasy and writes the script how he would like to think he could have handled it:
The Iraqi election may be the biggest story of the day, but it’s not my job as a journalist to let you bask in a policy victory. It’s my job to hold your feet to the fire, so I’m going to hammer you on domestic wiretapping.
I’d like to think that’s what Walter Cronkite would have done.
Maybe not.
My Soundtrack: Picky Bugger by Elbow on WOXY.
Posted in Impeach Bush | 4 Comments »
1145 by Jeff Hess
We’ve been obsessed with our Dick. But John Ettorre posts about a brief interview he once had with a Master: Mike Royko. John asked Royko why, even though he had two assistants, he answered his own phone. His answer, worthy of any Zen sensei: Because I’ve never been able to train someone to listen for what I’m listening for. Priceless.
Posted in Clifton And The Plain Dealer | 6 Comments »
1046 by Jeff Hess
I loved Tinker Toys and Legos when I was a kid. Back in the day the blocks were just the blocks. You had your choice of the square or the rectangle and they were all the same height. Now they come in an amazing array of shapes and sizes and colors and if I were nine again I know what I’d be looking for under the Holiday Christams tree.
Posted in Life, The Universe & Everything | 4 Comments »
1031 by Jeff Hess
My grandfather smoked Chesterfields. my dad smoked Pall Malls. I smoked Marlboros. I quit cold turkey on 5 December 1981. I support public smoking bans as a workplace issue. No one should, as a condition of employment, be forced to work where the air they breathe endangers their lives. But, as Chas Rich notes today, something else is at work.
It’s happy hour at T. B.’s Pub, but the place is almost empty. The real party is happening just steps away on a smoke-filled red school bus parked beside the bar in a gritty, working-class part of northwest Edmonton.
This is the butt bus, a place for bar patrons to light up between pints of Molson Canadian and Bud.
It’s also Edmonton City Hall’s newest legal nightmare.
It’s a legal nightmare because the clueless mayor thinks the Butt Bus violates the spirit of the law. Obviously he thinks the spirit of the law is not the protection of non-smoking employees but the erradication of smoking.
Memo to the Mayor: Smoking Tobacco Is Still Legal!
There are lots of reasons not to smoke. There are even lots of reasons why governemnts should make tobacco illegal. But until such a time as legislators get some spine, law abiding citizens should be safe from the morality police, no matter what form they take.
Dang, now I need a cigarette.
My Soundtrack: No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn by The Beastie Boys on WOXY.
Posted in Privacy | No Comments »
0847 by Jeff Hess
Oh, I want to be new: I want to be the girl I saw
last night at the mike, sex leaking from her fingertips
as they traveled down to pick at her hem.
She was younger than I’ve ever been, with hair cropped,
ragged clothes, and face as clear as a child’s.
She read as though she were in bed, eyes half closed,
teeth glistening, her shimmering body written
beneath her dress. She held every man in the audience
taut, and I thought of you.
From Coming Home by Elizabeth Tibbetts.
Posted in Poetry | No Comments »
0807 by Jeff Hess
Café life, without question, is one of the more enjoyable benefits of civilization. You can sit at your table for half an hour or more and watch the world go by, all for the price of a cup of coffee… It’s about the sitting there, hearing snatches of conversation, having your own thoughts, being aware of the other customers around you… Via Wendy.
Posted in Life, The Universe & Everything | No Comments »
0747 by Jeff Hess
Iran ignores Bush
‘cause he tied up our army
in an endless war.
Haiku by Ken Duncan.
Posted in Poetry | 2 Comments »
0718 by Jeff Hess
Ted Porter via Wendy: Newspapers are not the victims of homicide but of suicide… They are killing themselves with clichéd writing, formulaic stories, hackneyed photographs and adherence to a self-destructive, journalistic form that emphasizes breadth of news coverage over depth. [They] don”t have a societal problem; they have a quality problem.
Posted in Clifton And The Plain Dealer | No Comments »
0524 by Jeff Hess
We’ve lost it in America, and I hope we’re able to find it again. More precisely, I hope I can find it again. I’ve got to admit that as I get older, I’m finding it harder and harder to connect with the idealistic person I thought I used to be. Take, for example, my writing, which used to be something I did for “fun.”
I’m not going to get all crazy and try to convince anyone that I was a great writer or anything like that, but I used to take real pleasure in the release creative writing provided.
I know exactly how Tony feels. It is a repeated experience in my life. I even wrote my poem Caliope during one of those periods. The good news is that they’ve always passed. The bad new is that when you’re in the middle of one, no one can convince you that they always pass.
My Soundtrack: U 16 Girls by Travis on WOXY.
Posted in Life, The Universe & Everything | No Comments »
0452 by Jeff Hess
…if you ever have a niggling sensation that something isn’t working for you, open up the refrigerator, confront the body inside, and for heaven’s sake, make like a mobster and dispose of it! Could it be that someone has spent way too much time in New Jersey? Perhaps she needs a visit to coincide with our Cleveland blogger MeetUp?
Posted in Life, The Universe & Everything | 2 Comments »
