I love doing these…

Sitting in the library last evening I overheard a conversation between a librarian and a patron about creating more space for books in the library by eliminating all the computer workstations. No. The library is not turning back the clock, it’s making a leap forward by capitalizing on its installation of wifi.

Right now the library computers are traditional desktops with all the associated furniture and cabling. What the librarian was envisioning was the acquisition of web tablets, inexpensive laptops, that patrons would check out for use in the library. And this got me thinking about newspapers and the very expensive high-tech dinosaur the PD built in Brookpark.

Wifi has created something of a tipping point for the consumption of news and information via the Internet. It has made Internet surfing a nearly mobile phenomenon. As wifi continues to spread it will soon become as accessible as cellular phone signals. And when the purchase price of a web tablet drops — like all electronics — to below the two- or three-year subscription price of your daily newspaper, watch out.

The manufacture of newsprint is environmentally unsound. It requires the cutting, hauling chipping and pulping of millions of trees every year. The toxins produced in the process are well documented; you can smell a paper mill from miles away. It’s also a water-intensive process. That we waste all these valuable resources on something with a shelf life of less that 24 hours is obscene.

If I were a member of the Newhouse family, I’d be taking the hint of photographic film manufacturer Kodak and be figuring out how I was going to make the switch to digital. And if I were an employee in the newsprint/newspaper-printing industry, I’d go antique shopping and find me a buggy whip somewhere to hang in my living room under a sign reading:

Things Change.

My Soundtrack: Picky Bugger by Elbow on WOXY.

I’m sitting here sipping my Don Julio Reposado and pondering the raft of numbers on the scraps of paper spread out around my computer. Between students today I’ve been counting the words, posts, comments and images that I’ve published over the past year. Have Coffee Will Write went live on 9 November 2004.

Since that Tuesday a year ago I have written:

1,264 posts consisting of…

284,544 words and…

1,053 images about which I have received…

1,412 comments.

Over this past year I have acquired a number of readers that I value highly. My most recent stats tell me that:

4,962 unique visitors made…

11,096 visits and looked at…

42,979 pages for a grand total of…

166,601 hits sucking up…

2.76 giga bytes of pipe during the month of October.

I would like to first thank my Webgoddess Terry Kanago of Daily Troll who makes all of this work. Without her encouragement and coding magic I’d still be writing with a fountain pen in my journal.

I’d also like to thank the Cleveland Bloggers for welcoming me and for being the help and foil I often needed. While I appreciate all of you, I would like to particularly thank George Nemeth who is the glue that holds our blogger community together, as well as John Ettorre, Tim Russo, Will Kessell, Bill Callahan and Adam Harvey who have at different times been instrumental in making Have Coffee Will Write what it has become.

Don’t forget to enter the 1st anniversay irony contest!

My Soundtrack: Bird On A Wire by Rogue Wave on WOXY.

From Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac:

Get to a point where you can deny yourself anything
and then you are halfway there, some say.
And poems are made
of love not made.

What love haven’t you made?

My Soundtrack: A Perfect Fit by Tilly And The Wall on WOXY.

Over at Brewed Fresh Daily guest blogger Ron Copfer makes Softball the Pee Dee mascot smile by providing real news and analysis on the eve a major election in Cleveland. Copfer does a proper fisking of Mitch Schneider’s full-page ad in support of Mayor Jane Campbell in tomorrow’s election. Softball knows news.

The morning before Cleveland enters into an important mayoral election that will have a profound effect upon the region, our paper of record publishes the above front page. Not only is the page devoid of election coverage, I can’t find a single local hard news story anywhere on it. Thanks to Adam for the catch.

Jenny DeMonte guests for Jay Rosen and explores how Judith Miller received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. There are two issues here: first, was Miller worthy of support in a First Amendement battle? Yes, but so was Larry Flynt. Should she have gotten an award? Hell no.

Is there a National Security Letter in your future; or in your past? You say you don’t know? Well you’re not suppossed to know. Did you visit Los Angeles last year and stay in a hotel? If you did, you might have been sucked into an immense data base the FBI is creating all in the name of national security. Do you feel safer?

According to this morning’s Washington Post:

The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said.

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters — one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people — are extending the bureau’s reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

30,000 letters a year. Please pay close attention. That’s not 30,000 investigations of individuals. It is possible for hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent citizens to be swept up in these scavenger hunts without notification or the protection provided by our Constitution as regards reasonable search and siezure.

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

My Soundtrack: Sick With Redundancy Check by Human Television on WOXY.

When I read MaryBeth Matthews Street Smarts I sometimes wonder if she has any. But again and again she proves me wrong. She demonstrates she knows what she’s talking about, and that she knows how to tell people what’ should be on their minds. Why aren’t people talking about this $27 million boondoggle?

I’m going to break with my usual caution and post a rumor here that has been circulating among the faculty for a couple of years now:

Eventually Max Hayes will be forgotten by the public, new town houses will be built on the site, and nobody will remember the original twenty seven million dollar alocation of tax dollars.

I wish I had half her street smarts.

My Soundtrack: Too Young by Phoenix on WOXY.

Arthurs C. Clarke’s first law states: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Predictions about blogs are like that. Michael Malone has a good take on Forbes attempt to last week.

Let me make a prediction. Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has morphed (thanks to cell phone cameras) into a video medium that challenges television news, and has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars.

And, at about that moment, Forbes will announce that the blogosphere is the Next Big Thing for investors. Maybe they’ll even invite me back to Forbes on Fox.

My Soundtrack: Something In The Way by Nicolai Dunger on WOXY.

In the tussle between reporters and bloggers about who gets to keep the keys to the gate, it was good to remember that this past Thursday was Joe Queenan’s 55th birthday. Today he’d be a blogger, but 20 years ago he started out with an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal: Ten Things I Hate about Public Relations.

From Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac:

Queenan is one of the angriest and funniest contemporary critics of popular culture. His working-class background inspired him to become a critic because, he said: Blue collar people like me have zero tolerance level for the problems of celebrities.

He had been working a series of manual labor jobs, loading trucks and selling tennis racquets, when he decided to become a journalist. He has gone on to write a series of books criticizing various aspects of American culture, including Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else, and Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Selfish History of the Baby Boomer Generation.

Joe Queenan’s advice to aspiring writers is, Don’t write until you’re 25. Don’t write for the high school yearbook. Don’t write for the college literary magazine. Don’t write that stuff-you never had any experiences, you don’t know anything, just shut up.

Very good advice Joe.

My Soundtrack: I See You, You See Me by The Magic Numbers on WOXY.

Teen’s Blogs: Private Thoughts Go Public. Banner headline, page one, above the fold, three days before a mayoral election. Is the Pee Dee trying to put its readers to sleep so that they won’t vote on Tuesday? No. Wait. Cleveland residents don’t read the Pee Dee. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

[Update — 1743, 5 November — George agrees.]

George Nemeth has unleashed another flurry of comments and busted his previous record. This time its all about blogger ethics. I posted a few comments myself, but tonight I thought I’d take a look at the relative documents of two organizations involved: The Society of Professional Journalists and The Public Relations Society Of America.

I pulled up the PRSA Member Code Of Ethics and the SPJ Code Of Ethics. Both are wonderful weasel documents worth of any flack. Now, before the tar and feathers come out, let me state emphatically that I know many, many journalists who are professional, moral and ethical. (And I suppose there has to be some public relations types out there that professionally fit that bill too, but I’ve never met any.)

Allow me to start with the SPJ Code: Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. That is not an ethical code, that’s a lame attempt at covering your ass. The key word, of course, is should.

Shouldah, wouldah, couldah. Those words and $1.75 will get you a double-espresso at Phoenix on Lee.

Compare that to some other ethical code phrases:

Thou shalt not murder. Pretty clear isn’t it?

Or how about this:

A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrify, brave, clean and reverent.

See, it doesn’t say a Boy Scout should be, it says a Boy Scout is.

Interestingly enough, the only time the SPJ Code drops the shoulds is when it talks about accountability. There it reads:

Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

Makes you wonder why the society decided to use are instead of should there.

Now on to the PRSA Code. This little gem caught my eye right off the bat:

Emphasis on enforcement of the Code has been eliminated. But, the PRSA Board of Directors retains the right to bar from membership or expel from the Society any individual who has been or is sanctioned by a government agency or convicted in a court of law of an action that is in violation of this Code.

Damn. Doesn’t that sound like something a flack in the Bush administration could have written? I wonder if Scott McClellan is a member?

I found the PRSA Member Code Of Ethics Pledge particularly enlightening:

I pledge: to conduct myself professionally, with truth, accuracy, fairness, and responsibility to the public…

I’m stunned. To The Public! Anyone buy that? Is there anyone out there who believes that any but a tiny handful of public relations people hold their responsibility to the public above that of their responsibility to the person signing their paycheck?

Me neither.

None of this means that public relations people or journalists are bad people. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, wives and husbands. They struggle through life trying to do the best job they can with they’ve got. Some do a better job than others. But they are who they are because of the life experience that has made them.

Spare me, and them, the pretty pieces of paper on the office walls.

My Soundtrack: The Wayward Granddaughter by The Fiery Furnaces on WOXY.

After I wrote my post about Wal Mart’s War Room, a friend and I got into a discussion about political flacks. One of the points I brought up was how could anyone believe anything that either James Carville or Mary Matalin said after they got married? Could they believe the things they said during the day and get into the same bed at night?

I didn’t think so, but my friend suggested that maybe it was a Sam and Diane/Cheers thing; like they yelled at each other, called each other names and then tore the sheets up. It could be.

So it’s appropriate that today Arianna Huffington asks some questions about the continued presence of James Carville as Democratic pundit:

During a week when Harry Reid and the Dems finally found their spines and their voices on Plamegate and the war, it was deeply disturbing to see James Carville parading his tired, old, and utterly clueless act all over the TV — supposedly offering up the Democratic point of view.

Can somebody please, please, please shut Carville up — especially about Plamegate. His takes on the scandal are utterly compromised by his marriage to Mary Matalin.

[Snip…]

…instead of rethinking, the party is returning to the bone dry Carville advice well. He’s one of the guiding forces behind the influential Democracy Corps, which recently released a report calling for the Democrats to run on a 2006 agenda focused on health care, education and energy, followed by top end tax cut repeal and homeland security.

James Carville hasn’t had a fresh idea since The War Room stopped filming.

It’s time for him to take a long, long vacation from the spotlight. And he should take his Cheney/Libby-apologist, WHIG-war-salesman-wife with him.

Now here’s the strange part. I don’t like Huffington. I tried to follow her and her meta-blog for a few weeks but just couldn’t take the echo chamber effect. And I think that a 2006 Democratic campaign agenda focused on health care, education and energy, followed by top-end tax-cut repeal and homeland security makes sense.

But I don’t have any faith that that will be what is delivered when I hear that Carville is associated with it. I don’t know. Call me nuts. I have this thing about sincerity. Go figure.

My Soundtrack: Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes by Sun Kil Moon on WOXY.

A friend of mine has just moved to North Royalton from Akron and is trying to decide which DSL/Broadband Internet Service Provider to go with. My friend is not interested in also purchasing cable television access. Who services North Royalton and who is dependable? Which provider does everyone recommend? This is for wireless and basic usage.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the universe’s source for cheap plastic crap. The Bentonville Behemoth is dancing as fast as it can as it gets punched by a disloyal employee (thank you) who leaked an internal memo on benefits and hunkers down in its War Room to plot counter strikes against all of us well-organized and well-paid malcontents.

DUELING VIDEOS… Wal Mart and Robert Greenwald are tussling with counter and counter-counter videos over a trailor for Wal Mar: The High Price of Low Cost. Wal Mart’s War Room claims three strikes in three minutes. Greenwald’s staff returns fire with a fisking of the Bentonville Behemoth’s salvo. Ain’t this fun?

GOING TO THE MATTRESSES… Can Wal Mart CEO Lee Scott make gravy? We may be about to find out. Perhaps because it sees how things are unravelling for President Geroge Bush, the Bentonville Behemoth has hired some of the biggest guns in politics to man its War Room in preparation for the release of Wal Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price.

Keep reading…

COUGHLIN-WAL MART BATTLE TAKES TURN… From the Associated Press: An Arkansas judge Tuesday dismissed a large part of Wal-Mart Stores’ (WMT) lawsuit against former Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin, saying Coughlin and the company had an agreement that neither would sue over any events that happened…

TOOLS FOR ACTIVISTS… In preparation for Higher Expectations Week, 13-19 November, Wal Mart Watch has created and posted eight fact sheets for activists on: Discrimination, The Environment, Expansion, Health Care, Local Economies, Outsourcing, Women and Workers.

A CESSPOOL OF LEGAL VIOLATIONS… That’s how Jeffrey Winikow, a Los Angeles-based employee-rights lawyer described the recently leaked Wal Mart benefits memo. I’m wondering if Lee Scott is considering asking Patrick Fitzgerald to recommend a good leak investigator.

Keep reading…

FROM SUPER CENTERS TO SUPER CITIES… In a move designed to counter the sales losses resulting from a large segement of its customer base that can no longer afford the gasoline to drive to its super centers, Wal Mart today unveiled its SuperCities. In the bold plan, the Bentonville Behemoth’s big boxes will be transformed into big towers.

Keep reading…

REQUIRED READING… If you haven’t done so yet, make time this weekend to read the entire Chambers’ memo. The New York Times this morning calls the memo: required reading for all legislators, business people and advocates for change in the country’s health and retirement systems.

Keep reading…

MORE ON THE CHAMBERS MEMO… The New Republic’s Clay Risen didn’t think any more of Susan Chambers benefits memo than I did. The timing of the memo leak couldn’t have been better, coming, as it did, just before the Bentonville Behemoth;s CEO Lee Scott’s Aren’t We Green speech. The memo rips away the pretty streamers from Scott’s feel-good effort.

Keep reading…

IT’S NOT ALL WAL MART’S FAULT… Julie Larson nails how Wal Mart’s competitors sometimes shoot themselves in the foot. George Nemeth has posted Tom Peter’s Wallop-Walmart-16 advice on how to eat the Bentonville Behemoth’s lunch here before but it bears repeating. All of those small furry mammals out there can run rings around the lumbering dinosaurs. But you have to get out of your burrow and hustle.

My Soundtrack: Guiding Light by Singapore Sling on WOXY.

Those readers who have been following the exploits of George Nemeth, Tim Russo and Bill Callahan and their Meet The Bloggers project got a chance to see yesterday how it might develop in a post-mayoral election world when George and Tim interviewed Rebecca Ryan, a consultant on Cool.

As usual, the interview was interesting, but what really caught my eye was the pre-interview post (no permalink available) by Rebecca on her blog:

I’m recording a podcast with Tim Russo and George Nemeth, bloggers in CLE in a couple hours. On the record, they believe I’ve ripped the region of Northeast Ohio OFF. Among their concerns: Anyone could’ve made my recommendations to Akron. How dare I come from Madison and say the region could be better? How can I charge what I do for my services?

Posted by Rebecca Ryan on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 at 5:23 AM

Like George, I’m wondering what she’s going to post this morning.

My Soundtrack: Time Tough by Toots And The Maytals on WOXY.

Played prominently in today’s New York Times story about Wal Mart’s War Room is the role of political flacks from both sides of the aisle. It has long bothered me that politics in America are dominated by people for whom the game, not the issue or the vision, is the thing. It’s not about the right thing, it’s about winning.

Writes Michael Barbaro this morning:

Wal-Mart has quietly recruited former presidential advisers, including Michael K. Deaver, who was Ronald Reagan’s image-meister, and Leslie Dach, one of Bill Clinton’s media consultants, to set up a rapid-response public relations team in Arkansas.

[Snip…]

To keep up with its critics, Wal-Mart has to run a campaign, said Robert McAdam, a former political strategist at the Tobacco Institute who now oversees Wal-Mart’s corporate communications. It’s simply nonsense for us to let some of these attacks go without a response.

[Snip…]

So the company quietly mailed a letter to the country’s biggest public relations firms several months ago seeking their help in developing a response.

The contract went to Edelman, which assigned its top two Washington operatives to the account. Wal-Mart would not say what it is paying Edelman, nor would it allow interviews with the war room staff. Mr. Dach, who is active in environmental and Democratic causes, was an outside adviser to President Clinton during the impeachment battle. Mr. Deaver was President Reagan’s communications director and the creative force behind Mr. Reagan’s so-called Teflon image.

Edelman also dispatched at least six former political operatives to Bentonville, including Jonathan Adashek, director of national delegate strategy for John Kerry, and David White, who helped manage the 1998 re-election of Representative Nancy Johnson, a Connecticut Republican. Terry Nelson, who was the national political director of the 2004 Bush campaign, advises the group.

[Snip…]

Wal-Mart Watch’s media team includes Jim Jordan, former director of the Kerry campaign, and Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee aide responsible for distributing negative press reports about President Bush during the 2004 campaign.

All of these people have a perfect right to work for whatever company they wish. But what this high-lights for me is that fact that you can’t trust what they have to say, regardless of what cause they’re trumpeting. If tomorrow, Robert Greenwald were able to cut a check to any of these flacks, I have no doubt they’d change horses in mainstream and not even get their cuffs wet.

My Soundtrack: To Hell With Poverty by The Gang Of Four on WOXY.

The Kinky Friedman for Governor of Texas campaign continues to roll along. This past weekend Kinky’s friend Willie Nelson raised more than $150,000 with a golf outing featuring former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. If elected, Kinky has promised to make Willie his chief energy advisor and head of the Texas Rangers.

Back in the first Reagan administration, when I was a journalism student at Ohio University, I got to hear Lyle Denniston speak. He’s a rabid defender of First Amendment rights and a reporter with more than 40 years of covering the United States Supreme Court. His voice is one I trust for a straight analysis of what’s what.

I only recently discovered that Denniston is one of the bloggers posting at SCOTUSblog. Last evening he posted what he expects to happen this week after President George Bush names either: Samuel A. Alito, Jr., 55, of the Third Circuit in Philadelphia and J. Michael Luttig, 51, of the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, as his nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Denniston wrote:

On the other hand, the conservative opposition to Miers, over the question of her judicial philosophy and her views on social issues, has given new legitimacy to a thorough Senate inquiry into the philosophical leanings of any new nominee.

The Democrats could not stop either nomination without Republican support.

Will it be a fillibuster or a White House meltdown?

My Soundtrack: Punks In The Beerlight by Silver Jews on WOXY.