CivicActions

On November 7th, CivicActions launched the WITNESS Video Hub, (more information about the Hub can be found here on our site).

NPR's Morning Edition just had an interesting piece about KPBS, the local San Diego NPR affiliate, and how they are using technology to help the local community during the devastating wildfires of the past week. I'll try to post the link to the piece on NPR's website once it's up later this morning, but for now, here's some of the highlights:

Bill Moyers recently had a piece on PBS about the anniversary of the Amish school massacre. I was struck by the incredible compassion of the Amish community, especially towards the family of the man who committed the murders.

Here's an excerpt from a statement (about a month old) on behalf of the Amish, one year after the school massacre in Nickel Mines, PA:

Hi everyone, and welcome to our post-9/11 police state.

I'm really troubled by two recent examples of the accepted methods of law enforcement and the way the media reports on them.

Example #1:
The guy at the Kerry political talk who got tazered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvrWt_dHAT4

Example #2:
The MIT student who was arrested today at Boston's Logan airport as a terrorism suspect: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070921/ap_on_re_us/fake_bomb

The NY Times is reporting that CARE is rejecting $45 million a year in federal funds to protest the system of food aid which is hurting farmers in African countries. This all stems from the US "Farm Bill" subsidies, which encourage agribusiness to overproduce crops via subsidies. The extras are sent to Africa, where they become more attractive than locally-grown goods because of the low price.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski is taking a week-long challenge to raise awareness about the difficulty of feeding a family on a food stamp budget.

From Yahoo News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070425/ap_on_re_us/a_week_on_food_stamps

Cool campaign finance flash thing, via techPresident:

The New York Times has produced a great Flash feature that lays campaign contributions (unfortunately, only those over $200) over a map of the United States, divided by candidate. There are no real revelations here, but it's a great way to visualize how much money the candidates received, and where it came from.

Working at CivicActions requires the ability to juggle many tasks, projects and ideas at once. It's a real challenge. I just found a video from our New Orleans retreat that really exemplifies this.

Check it out here.

Errr... maybe not. Damn newbies.

I just finished reading this article profiling Frank Rich of the NY Times (Harvard Magazine, March 2007), and really enjoyed his insights on the power of the visual, especially video. The visual power mostly held by traditional media since the 60's is being scrutinized and debunked through grassroots media more than ever. From the article:

Am I dreaming or is Barak Obama's website under a Creative Commons license?!

From the footer of http://www.barackobama.com:

That's pretty cool. This is the first major political campaign that I know of to use Creative Commons licensing.