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October 31, 2006
Edgar Allen PoeCast
No Halloween is truly complete without some spooky guy reading aloud Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Courtesy of the LibraVox audiobook project, by way of the SEGA Tech blog. Enjoy.... -andy
Tags: audiobooks | halloween | podcasts | publicdomain
Posted by acarvin at 4:20 PM
Chick or Treat
So I'm sitting at my desk this morning catching up on email and the building-wide PA system here at NPR suddenly announces, "The Chicken Man is in the house. The Chicken Man is IN DA HOUSE!!!" I didn't make much of it at the time because, well, this is NPR.
Then a few minutes later the Chicken Man showed up on our floor. He (or is it a she in there?) came by my desk and silently dumped a handful of candy on a stack of paperwork. (Two Reeses peanut butter cups and a few other tasty treats.) Before he/she/it vanished to the next desk, I managed to snap this picture on my phone as proof of the encounter.
And to think that you, too, can work in my office. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to meet the Chicken Man as well.
Posted by acarvin at 9:54 AM
October 26, 2006
Political Attack Ad Mashup
Jaime Holguin of the Associated Press asap service has put together an amazing mashup of this year's most obnoxious political campaign ads. And yes, you can dance to it. Enjoy.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 6:14 PM
October 25, 2006
The Wrong Man: Ed Humphrey and the Gainsville Murders
I've waited 16 years to tell this story publicly. Every couple of years I edited this essay, tweaking this and tweaking that, but I didn't want to post all of it until the time of the execution. It seems that time has come - just a few minutes from now.
Over a three-day period in August 1990, the mutilated bodies of five young people were found scattered across Gainesville, Florida. With the whole state in panic, police quickly apprehended a student named Edward Lewis Humphrey. The police, the media boldly announced, had caught the Gainesville Murderer.
Or so they thought. Eventually - over a year later - the actual perpetrator of the crime, Danny Rolling, was charged with the murders while serving a life sentence for armed robbery. In late February of 2004, Rolling changed his plea to guilty.
Tonight he will die for his crimes. But this probably won't change the image most Americans have in their mind from that horrible summer: an image of Ed Humphrey, paraded in the courtroom in an orange jump suit, looking, so we thought, like a serial killer.
The horror began on Sunday, August 26, 1990, when the bodies of two University of Florida freshmen were found murdered in their apartment. Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were found in Williamsburg Village, a popular student residence, both apparently strangled. But the killer did not stop there: both were skillfully slashed open from pelvis to thorax, and parts of their breasts had been chopped off. At first, police hoped that this was a case of a botched burglary gone terribly wrong and would remain an isolated incident. But the next day, the corpse of 18-year-old Christa Hoyt was found in a nearby apartment. The murder scene was even more grotesque: the killer, after completing the same ritual slashings, decapitated the young woman, placed her head on the mantelpiece above the fireplace with her eyes pried open, and finally cleaned the apartment with Windex, leaving behind the bizarre, yet gruesome display.
Gainesville was in a state of absolute panic. As thousands of students left town to return home, thousands others bought up the city's supply of mace, stun guns and pistols. And though Alachua County Police mobilized over 300 officers from around the area, they were still unable to stop the killing. The next day, two more young bodies were found. Tracey Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23, were found dead in their apartment. The scene was relatively calm compared to the other two sites - neither body was mutilated, though Taboada had been stabbed no less than 30 times (police suspected that Taboada, a six-and-a-half foot football player, probably surprised the killer as he was murdering Paules, and was probably stunned with a taser gun before being killed himself, thus distracting the killer from his routine).
The biggest manhunt in the history of the Southeast was now in full swing. All of Florida was caught in a state of history-repeating-itself shock, hearkening back to the year 1978, when Ted Bundy rampaged through the Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house, killing several women. But as suddenly as the murders began, the killings abruptly stopped. While families buried their children and university students practiced their shooting skills, the nation began to ask the inevitable rhetorical question, "Why?" The state and county police, as well as the FBI, were obviously under enormous pressure to apprehend the murderer or murderers.
On Friday, August 31, the state police received a possible lead. Ed Humphrey, a University of Florida student with a recent history of mental problems, had just been arrested my hometown of Indialantic, Florida, 100 miles southeast of Gainesville. He had apparently hurt his grandmother in an argument and was now ranting about the Gainesville murders to the local police. The state police announced it would question Humphrey before his arraignment at the Brevard County Juvenile Correctional Facility. During the questioning he babbled about the murders, Satan, and someone named John (psychiatrists believed this may have been a reference to John the Baptist). Ed's attorney, Ed Lykkeback, protested the proceedings: "He was a medical patient at the time [of the questioning] who was not being treated. He said a lot of grandiose things that caused him to become a suspect. He was rambling." Upon the completion of the interrogation, the police officially labeled Humphrey as a prime suspect, and the bond for his petty assault charge was raised from $10,250 to one million dollars, about 200 times higher than the typical assault bond.
I had been in my room packing for school when my mom told me to come downstairs. I assumed she wanted to know whether I had heard from any of my friends in Gainesville. Since the murders had started, about half said they were heading home, while the other half decided to stay together in large groups. Either way, there was nothing truly extraordinary to report, so I thought I'd be back to work in a moment or two. When I finally entered her room, she had a strange, almost quizzical look on her face. Before I could say anything, she spoke.
"I just got off the phone with Trudy, and she says she heard that they've arrested someone." Jesus, I thought, getting ready to joke and ask whether it was anyone I knew. Before I could open my mouth, she completed her thought.
"It's Ed Humphrey."
I stared blankly at her. Ed? He had emotional problems, but he was no Ted Bundy. Her friend Trudy must have screwed up the local gossip. Nah…. Couldn't be.
I completely shrugged off the possibility and eventually went to bed.
The next morning I woke up rather early and was the first person up and around. Not even considering the conversation from the night before, I turned on CNN to see what was new in the world. The first image to greet me was a picture of Ed Humphrey, scarred and overweight, being led away by bailiffs at a hearing. I was utterly amazed. How in the world could this be happening? I had known him since first grade, and this made absolutely no sense. The reporter explained, "The city of Gainesville, Florida breathed a collective sigh of relief as Edward Louis Humphrey of Indialantic was questioned and held on a lesser charge." He hadn't been arrested for the murders, yet, but this was close enough.
Ed Humphrey was the headlining story for every news program and paper in America. His image fit the media's requirements for the perfect serial killer: at 220 pounds and over six feet tall he was an intimidating figure, but his scarred face and disheveled hair, results of a recent car accident, gave him the appearance of a madman. Though he answered the judge's questions quite lucidly, he would mug for the TV cameras, making faces and crossing his eyes. The media, so it would seem, had captured the quintessential psychopath.
The media did not focus on the police's evidence linking Humphrey to the crime (since there was none, not including his manic, but nonspecific ramblings about the murders). Instead, they keyed into Humphrey's bizarre background. He was better than the stereotypical loner, sketched out by the neighbors as "a nice, but quiet young man." Instead, Humphrey was depicted as the all-American kid gone sour. He played varsity soccer and easily had a 3.0 average or higher. For years Ed was always the one to say hello to you first when you passed him in the hall, his teeth gleaming and gait bouncing. Then, in my junior year, the transformation began. After a severe case of mononucleosis which required months of heavy drug use, Ed began to change. He would go around school in army fatigues, playing "Rambo" by himself in the halls, without warning or provocation. He also stopped doing his work on time. Finally, one day while driving down a highway with an older brother, Ed jumped out of the car as it was traveling at over 50 miles per hour. Though only suffering mild scrapes and bruises, Ed was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for three months.
After treatment, Ed eventually graduated and moved to Gainesville with his brother, George. He didn't stay for long, though - he was arrested for wielding a knife at a group of students, though he claimed he had only done so because they said they were going to beat him up. Ed returned to Indialantic, but was quickly rehospitalized after a bizarre car accident which left his legs broken and his faced slashed in dozens of places. Police classified the crash as a suicide attempt. I was not able to visit him in the hospital, but one of my friends did, and what he told me still haunts me. "Ed says he blanked out from all the medicine, and did not want to kill himself. He says that he's sick but the doctors and his parents ignore him."
By August of 1990, Ed's physical wounds had healed (though his face was deeply scarred) and he enrolled in classes at the University of Florida. But he also had quit using his lithium and his manic behavior reappeared. The week of the murders, he returned home to Indialantic, where his grandmother (with whom he had lived) accused him of being high on drugs, not realizing he was having another manic fit. A fight ensued and Ed shoved her, smashing her face onto the tile floor.
The local papers had a field day with the story. "Local Teenager: Murderer?" and other profitable headlines graced the pages. Suddenly, I was seeing images of Ed I had never dreamed of -- Ed the Loner, Ed the Mental Patient, Ed the Grandmother Beater -- this was absolutely ridiculous. Outside of high school photos, police reports, and interviews with "friends" who barely even knew the guy, the paper provided very little information. Ed had been arrested in Indialantic for punching his grandmother, and within hours the police somehow had reasonable cause to consider him as their Number One Suspect.
His was a story the media could not resist. It had more bizarre twists and turns than even the best screenwriter's murder mystery. Of course, the state police had assembled other suspects - seven men, to be exact - but their stories were largely ignored, usually mentioned in passing as part of the breaking story on "the prime suspect." One of the suspects, Warren Tinch, was a 58-year-old Ohio man wanted for the murder of an elderly woman. Another man, Stephen Bates, had just been arrested in a neighboring county on a theft charge. And another suspect, Danny Rolling, was just picked up for armed robbery. But these men, along with the four others, were passed over by the media due to their lack of interest, or, perhaps more accurate, the enormous wealth of interest in the Humphrey case.
But the Florida police and FBI quickly realized they had a possible problem. The only evidence linking Humphrey to the crimes was his manic ranting about the murders. He never claimed to have committed them, though he appeared to enjoy talking about them when he wasn't on his lithium. Beyond that, the police only had a general positive semen match between Ed and the first murder site - a match which could have occurred between the murderer and over 7,000 other men in Alachua County, though. Lacking the proof to even charge him with the murders, the police recommended that, if convicted, he should receive the maximum sentence for beating his grandmother. By late October, Ed was convicted of the assault, despite his grandmother's pleas that the charges be dropped. Ed received 21 months in solitary confinement for a crime which usually resulted in probation. While in jail, FBI genetics experts determined that pubic hair found on the scene did not match his, but other genetic material from another cite matched identically with that of another suspect, Danny Rolling. Over a year after the murders, a grand jury indicted Rolling for the murders, but they refused to indict Humphrey due to an overwhelming lack of evidence.
After serving 15 months of the sentence (mostly in the Chattahoochee State Prison Hospital), Ed was released.
"I thought the media was really unfair. It sucked, man."-Ed Humphrey
There is no doubt that much of social persecution that has become a mundane reality for Ed Humphrey was catalyzed by the media's sensationalistic coverage of the murders and its lack of sensitivity to the facts of the case. Not unlike the Richard Jewell case six years later, the media selectively emphasized Humphrey's troubled background and failed to acknowledge the police's inability to connect him to the evidence.
The Florida Today, the largest paper in Brevard County, had a field day with the Humphrey case. The day after his bond hearing, the front-page headline for the Today announced "SUSPECT'S BOND: $1 MILLION." A large color photo below the headline depicted a disheveled Humphrey, sporting chains, shackles and red prison garb, being escorted by an equally huge police officer. Two articles filled the top two thirds of the page: on the right, "BREVARD TEEN NAMED IN UF SLAYING PROBE," and below the picture, "YOUNG MAN 'HAD HIS HIGHS AND HAD HIS LOWS.'" A small blue graphic announced a "Special report, 4A-5A."
Brevard County and the Florida Today had not seen a story as juicy and as shocking as this since the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, whose debris scattered across the county beaches only four and a half years earlier. The Today took advantage of this new-found attention with its sensationalist front page that morning. At first glance, the headlines on that page seem typical enough: they inform the reader that a local teenager has become a suspect in the murder investigation, his bail was set for a million dollars, and he was troubled and strange young man, as can be expected in such serial killing cases. But with these statements begins the societal damnation of Humphrey.
The headline and article acknowledging the police's suspicions is factual enough - it states what the police believe and discusses the details. But the other two parts of the page are quite alarming. The headline "SUSPECT'S BOND: $1 MILLION" is rather confusing for it implies that Humphrey, the suspect, has been arrested for the crime and is now stuck with a bail that mirrors the heinousness of his actions. But Ed was not arrested for the murders; he was in jail for the assault on his grandmother. But none of the headlines explain this important fact - instead, the reader is left to assume that the bond is in relation to the murders, for at this point, the reader knows absolutely nothing about the assault.
When one explores the page a bit further, one finds the paragraph "An Indialantic man named among suspects in the University of Florida slayings was ordered held on $1 million bond Friday on an unrelated assault charge." For the newspaper, this paragraph at the beginning of the article explains in basic detail the circumstance surrounding Humphrey's bond sentencing. This may be true, but for the reader of the newspaper, the first thing she might do is read the large headline, and perhaps look at the picture. Next, she would probably read the subheadlines. Before she even begins to read the article (assuming she is interested enough to continue), the tone of the story has been set. Humphrey is a murder suspect and his bond is enormous. Even though the reader realizes through reading the story that the bond was in reference to "an unrelated assault" and not the murders, she is already left with the psychological impression that Humphrey is the murderer. The general term suspect is equated with the evidence-backed concept of a suspect who has been charged with the crime. And once a reader has felt that a suspect has become the suspect, she may assume his guilt, though no evidence has been presented in a court of law to even charge him with the crime. This assumption, unfortunately, is based solely on the newspapers incompetent attempt to disseminate the news properly.
The other headline, "YOUNG MAN 'HAD HIS HIGHS AND HAD HIS LOWS,'" sets the pace for an embarrassingly damning article which chronicles the rise and fall of Ed Humphrey. After noting his previously unknown, yet tragic high school years, the article paints an ugly picture:
That fragile shield of anonymity was shattered forever Friday with news that he had become a suspect in the brutal slayings of five students in Gainesville. Now the nation knows his name: Edward Louis Humphrey, Cub Scout, Eagle Scout, the youngest in a family of four. . . . Edward Louis Humphrey, Key Club, Spanish Club, a solid B student who always had his homework in on time. And finally, Edward Louis Humphrey, in Brevard County Jail on $1 million bond in the assault of his grandmother - and a suspect in the slayings that have stunned two college campuses and the Gainesville community surrounding them.
The article, which continued in the "special report" spread several pages later, then focused on his friends discussing how Humphrey would run around on "combat missions," dressed in camouflage, sporting a non-existent rifle and shouting various military terms. His high school principal noted that he wasn't "very gregarious." The article portrays the image of a very disturbed young man, the sort you might expect to go on a murderous rampage. To make matters worse, the article is juxtaposed with several related stories, including "APARTMENT COMPLEX RESIDENTS STRUGGLE TO COPE WITH TRAGEDY," "HUNDREDS MOURN FOR VICTIMS" and "TIP FROM FRIEND GIVES UF REPORTER INSIDE TRACK ON TEEN SUSPECT." In the center of the page appears a photo of a crying pallbearer at one of the funerals. Below that is a picture of Humphrey's grandmother, her eye bruised and swollen.
What does this spread tell the reader? The pages go into great depth discussing various events surrounding the case, yet only one suspect, Ed Humphrey, is emphasized. We read these inside stories about his dubious history, yet we also see and read about the grief of those who knew the victims. The reader is provided with the same profile usually attributed to alleged serial killers after they have been charged with the crime in court. The term suspect is thus used in a more official capacity in such cases. But the Florida Today's blurring of the line between potential suspect and officially charged suspect blurs the understanding of the reader, leaving her with the impression that the police finally have their man.
For their September 10th issue, the first to go to press after Humphrey's arraignment, Newsweek placed the Gainesville murders on a spread at the beginning of their National Affairs section. It is a rather active layout: the headline "THE SIGNATURE OF A SERIAL KILLER" boldly asserts itself across the left page. Below that is the subhead "FIVE GRISLY MURDERS TERRIFY A FLORIDA COLLEGE TOWN - AND FBI EXPERTS CONSTRUCT A PROFILE OF THE PSYCHOPATH." Approximately two inches directly below the subhead is a picture of Humphrey, the poor camera light accentuating his scars to the point of making them fresh and bloody. To the right is a large picture of the police rolling away the body bag of Christa Hoyt. Directly below that is a picture of mourning friends displaying a sign with Christa's name and large heart symbol. And hovering above the whole scene are the high school class photos of each of the victims.
The image sends a rather harsh message to the reader. The victims are represented in three distinct ways: as the living, as the dead, and as the loss of loved ones. It is a bitterly tragic triumvirate which evokes both compassion and rage in the reader. But perhaps the most damning visual image is that of Ed Humphrey: it may be the worst picture of him ever published, his face and hair a wreck, his stare cold, all encompassed by a restraining chain around his neck. And directly above that we have the aforementioned line, "FBI EXPERTS CONSTRUCT A PROFILE OF THE PSYCHOPATH." Newsweek literally presents us that profile in the form of Ed's psychotic picture. Even the most casual reader of the spread is obliged to make the connection. Ed is not merely a suspect - he is the FBI's psychopath.
The article itself is as brutal as the imagery. The piece emphasizes the brutality of the murders, noting gruesome gossip such as "Hoyt's body had been sliced open from the pelvis to the upper chest and. . . the women's breasts had been slashed." Eventually, the article brings up Ed Humphrey, and not unlike the Today stories, it presents no actual connection between Ed and the murders. The article leaves no mention of the other suspects, too. The only new information provided is that Ed had once lived in the same apartment complex as two of the victims. For all intents and purposes, Ed is only mentioned as a possible sidenote to the story, but the inclusion of his picture would suggest otherwise.
But the most damning part of the story appears in the last column. While presenting us with a description of the University's new-found paranoia, Newsweek includes the following sentence:
Frightened students cowered behind locked doors in their apartments, and scores left school until the killer was caught.
Until the killer was caught? This, obviously, would suggest to the reader that the killer had been apprehended! And this killer, according to the article (by default, since no other suspect is mentioned), is Edward Louis Humphrey. The sentence could not be interpreted any other way - it is written in past tense, suggesting that students no longer cowered behind locked doors because the killer was now in custody. Such a statement would probably not be reconsidered by the casual viewer. The only thing it could possibly accomplish is reinforce the unfounded belief that Ed Humphrey was the Gainesville Murderer.
I don't want to be on TV. I don't want people to read about me. I don't want people to know who I am. I mean, it's just a really bad feeling -knowing that wherever you go people are judging you, and they don't even know you. They've never even talked to you. And people do it to me all the time. . . . You know, I really don't like reporters.
-Ed Humphrey
In the case of Ed Humphrey, the people and the state of Florida simultaneously panicked. The media, understandably, gave the murders a great deal of coverage, but in doing so added to the fear and suspicion on all sides. So when the police finally identified a legitimate, albeit weak, suspect, the weight of societal anger and frustration was then dumped onto the back of that suspect. Ed Humphrey did not have to become a name which evoked dread in the hearts of Floridians. But the media, more set on getting the biggest and fastest story instead getting the most accurate story, presented his tale without the caveats needed to remind the public that he is merely a suspect and nothing more. Even Humphrey openly talks about the media's role in his character assassination, as he did in an interview in the Florida today many years later:
I feel 100 percent sure that the media is the main reason our country is the way it is. I mean, people watch too much TV - five, six hours a day. Well, they're influenced so much by what they watch and they think, 'Oh yeah, I saw they got the suspect. Glad they caught him.' They don't even think about what the word 'suspect' means. They just think, 'Well, he probably did it because there is is on TV.' And then, as far as newspapers go, half the things that [they] deal with are just negative things about people. When I got out of jail and got a job, when I got good grades in school, they weren't calling me. What are they going to say when I get off probation?
About six months after he was released from jail, I ran into him on at our local mall, one of only two occasions where I've seen him since the murders. He was with two young women, smiling, and had lost a lot of the weight. I'd grown a beard and was now wearing glasses, but he recognized me immediately and gave me a hug.
Ed was Ed again; he still had lots of problems to overcome, but he was no longer the monster of Gainesville. He was living with his brother in Orlando, working, and taking night classes.
I asked him if he was bitter about the way he had been treated. He said no.
"And if I had been a newspaper publisher," Ed concluded, "I would have done the same thing." -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:50 PM
October 24, 2006
Ze Frank: The Unblinking Eye
ps - If you haven't seen Ze's show before, please do so before watching this video or it won't make any sense. Trust me. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:05 PM
Family Pet Becomes Addicted to Hallucinogenic Toads
Funny story from NPR today about Lady, a cocker spaniel who got into the habit of licking toads from the local pond to trip on the hallucinogenic compounds excreted by their skin. Now the family is working tirelessly to help Lady get the monkey (or toad) off her back.
Just say no, Lady. Think of the puppies. And the toads, for crying out loud.... -andy
read more | digg story
Posted by acarvin at 5:09 PM
October 23, 2006
Babytalk
At 4am this Saturday, Kayleigh started babbling to herself. She hasn't stopped since then.
I dare you to find two minutes of cuter footage on a video blog. I double dare you.
Tags: babies | cute | funny | kayleigh | video
Posted by acarvin at 7:55 PM
October 17, 2006
Debate 2.0: Gubernatorial Blogging as an Exercise in E-Democracy
For the last week, there's been an extraordinary online exercise taking place in Minnesota. Actually, it's taking place in cyberspace - a 10-day gubernatorial e-debate in which the six leading candidates for governor are interacting on a group blog. Moderated by online democracy whiz Steve Clift in partnership with e-democracy.org and the Blandin Foundation, the e-debate takes advantage of a variety of Web 2.0 tools to give the public a whole new way of observing - and participating - in a political debate.
The debate began as a video blog, with each candidate posting a brief introduction on YouTube. These have been followed by a series of questions, answers and rebuttals on a wide range of topics, from the digital divide to healthcare to the national guard. Different questions request the candidates to respond in different formats. For example, a question on what the candidates would do to improve access to wifi and broadband would only allow a 70-word response, forcing the candidates to be succinct, while discussions on healthcare could be open-ended. Candidates could submit their responses by email or by voicemail, which would be transcribed by the debate organizers.
Meanwhile, the public can participate in a variety of ways. They can follow the debate on the website, as well as via rss and email. The responses include a rating system, allowing the public to grade them on a scale of one to five (the average rating seems to be around 2.5 at the moment.) All the candidates' responses can be reused according to a Creative Commons attribution license, meaning anyoen can do pretty much anything they want with it as long as they cite the e-debate website as its source.
For those people who wish to dive into the debate, Steve and his colleagues have set up multiple platforms for online interaction. You can join their bulletin board or e-list. You can upload your photos or video to Flickr.com YouTube respectively and tag them "mn06," which causes them to be displayed automatically in a photo gallery. If you have a microphone one you computer, you can record audio comments. And of course, they're aggregating blog post that mention the debate.
On the whole, I've been very impressed with the e-debate so far. The website is easy to use, allowing for various forms of multimedia while recognizing the importance of accessibility and low-bandwidth access. In some ways, though, the e-debate mimics the modern political debate a little too closely, with only limited direct interaction between the candidates. I would love to see more instances where candidates are responding directly to each other's posts rather than sticking to their pre-determined answers. I'd also love to see more of a public imprimatur on the individual questions, as in "Jenny Malcomsen of St. Paul asks, 'What would your administration do in regards to immigration reform," with their questions being presented in the media format of their choice. But these are small bones to pick in comparison to what's being accomplished.
Once again, Steve Clift is making the world safe for e-democracy - and every politician should take notice. -andy
Tags: digital divide | e-democracy | e-government | mobcasting | odeo | politics | tagging | video blogging | web 2.0 | youtube
Posted by acarvin at 9:54 AM
October 16, 2006
The Things I Do to Make Kayleigh Laugh
Tags: 2006 | funny | kayleigh | laughing
Posted by acarvin at 10:05 PM
Video Blogging to Combat Child Hunger
Fighthunger.org, the blog of the United Nations World Food Programme, recently announced the launch of what they're calling the Walk the World Viral Video Contest. They're looking for people to produce a short video (120 seconds or less) offering an upbeat message that spreads the world about ending child hunger by the year 2015, one of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Anyone 18 years old or older is welcome to submit a video, and they're encouraging users to upload their clips to either blip.tv or Ourmedia.org and tag them fhvideo.
The winning video will be used in official media campaigns of the UN World Food Programme, and the vlogger who produced the video will also be given a free trip to visit a school somewhere in the developing world where they'll get to personally experience the World Food Programme in action.
If you're interested in participating, please be sure to read the contest rules All videos submitted to the contest should use a Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share-Alike License. Videos must be submitted no later than December 15, 2006. So get out that camera and put together a video for a great cause! -andy
ps - Turns out this post is my 1300th post on this blog.
Tags: contests | MDGs | poverty | UN | videoblogging
Posted by acarvin at 10:44 AM
October 15, 2006
The Good, the Bath and the Ugly
Tags: kayleigh nokia-n93 video
Posted by acarvin at 9:10 PM
October 14, 2006
Saturday at the Ikea
Tags: ikea 2006 shopping video nokia-n93 meatballs furniture
Posted by acarvin at 11:05 PM
October 13, 2006
Nokia N93 Test: The World Bank Atrium
Posted by acarvin at 6:25 PM
Yunus and the Grameen Bank Win the Nobel Peace Prize
I couldn't believe my ears this morning. One of my heroes had just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a truly pioneering institution in the fight against rural poverty. As a young man in the early 1970s, Yunus spent time in the US on a Fullbright scholarship; when he returned home to Bangladesh, which was in the midst of a famine, he realized the current system of poverty alleviation simply wasn't working.
So Yunus created the Village (Grameen in Bangla) Bank. Rather than lending money to typical bank borrowers, Yunus decided that his loans would go to the poorest of the poor - farmers, village women, even beggars. The bank developed a system of offering microloans - loans often less than $100, the kind of amount that any other bank would never have bothered to award to its customers. In Bangladesh, though, a loan of $50 or $75 to a rural villager can mean the difference between abject poverty and ipermanently mproving the quality of life for their family. Microloans allow them to establish a kiosk selling dry goods, buy new farming implements, even pay for health insurance. They take the burden off extremely low-income households and give them a fighting chance to achieve prosperity.
Many bankers scoffed at the idea that a microloan program could ever work in a place as poor as Bangladesh. Surely, most borrowers would default on their loans and cause Grameen to go bankrupt. But Yunus proved them wrong. Of nearly $6 billion loaned over the last 30 years, an astounding 98.85% has been recovered.
The Grameen Bank has had a profound effect on the women of Bangladesh. Approximately 95% of the bank's borrowers are women - this, in a country where women historically had little to no economic independence. Because of Grameen, millions of Bangladeshi women have started their own businesses and prospered. One of their best known accomplishments is the digital divide initiative known as the Grameen Phone program. Women are given loans to start small telecom businesses in their home village. They receive a mobile phone and training, then make that phone available to villagers for community use. For villages with no other telecommunications link to the outside world, the Grameen Phone program has created new opportunities for local residents while helping women achieve improved socioeconomic status. It's proved so successful that Grameen is now replicating the initiative in Rwanda and other central African countries.
Perhaps what's most exciting about this Nobel selection is that the people of Bangladesh can rightfully claim that they as individuals have won a share of the Peace Prize. Approximately 94% of the bank is owned by its 6.6 million borrowers - the farmers, the women entrepreneurs, the beggars - while the remaining six percent is owned by the government of Bangladesh, which of course represents the people. No matter how you slice it, this years Peace Prize has been rewarded to the Bangladeshis themselves. Muhammad Yunus may be the one standing in Oslo this December - and rightfully so - but he will be standing on the shoulders of millions of Bangladeshi citizens, each of whom must be swelling with joy this day.
Learn more about the Grameen Bank, as told by Muhammad Yunus himself:
Full disclosure: some of you may remember that the Grameen Foundation funded my March 2005 trip to India's Baramati conference. One of the results of that trip was my Indian video blog, Baramati Bus Stop. If you haven't watched it before, take a look:
Posted by acarvin at 9:35 AM
October 12, 2006
Nokia N93 Experiment: Dual-Mode Self Portrait
Posted by acarvin at 10:50 PM
Nokia N93 Experiment: Winston and the String
Posted by acarvin at 9:45 PM
October 9, 2006
Waiting at the ICU
Susanne at the intensive care unit where her father is hospitalized. The doctors have gone from pessimistic to cautiously optimistic over the last week. Dave is still critical, but stable. They're weaning him off life support and hope to take the tubes out this week. He'll probably have to be in the ICU for at least a few more weeks, then will need physical therapy to get his strength back. But he's doing well enough for Susanne, Kayleigh and I to go home today. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:39 PM
October 7, 2006
Baby Blue
Susanne took this wonderful pic of Kayleigh last night. It's definitely one of my favorites so far.
Posted by acarvin at 7:30 PM
Waiting for Kayleigh to Say Something Notable
Posted by acarvin at 4:10 PM
Welcome to the World, Elsa!
This morning we received the wonderful news that our friends Hallie and CJ are now proud parents of a beautiful little girl named Elsa. Everyone was expecting a boy, but obviously, Elsa had plans of her own. Welcome to the world, Elsa!
Posted by acarvin at 12:06 PM
October 6, 2006
Blogger, Odeo Get Out of the Mobcasting Business
Yesterday I received an email from Audioblogger.com, the mobile phone podcasting service for Blogger/Blogspot blogs. Looks like they're getting rid of the free service at the end of the month:
As of November 1, 2006, Audioblogger will no longer accept phone calls. MP3s made with the service will continue to be hosted and served but you will no longer be able to use Audioblogger to post new audio.Audioblogger is an independent product, run by Odeo, Inc., a small
startup company in San Francisco, CA. We are not affiliated with
Google or Blogger except that we operate and provide the
Audioblogger service.Given our limited resources, we have to make tough decisions
about what projects to focus on. And we've come to the difficult
decision that Audioblogger demands too many resources, time, and
money for us to continue its operation.However, there are several other services that offer similar
functionality. Odeo is not affiliated with any of these services,
we only suggest them only in hopes that one or the other will be
a good alternative for you.Gabcast.com is a free service for recording by phone
Hipcast.com has a seven day free trial and lots of features
Gcast.com is another free service for phone recordingAll of the phone posting services listed above are compatible
with Odeo in that they produce podcast feeds, which can be
imported to Odeo. Any audio file at Odeo can be posted on a blog
by copying and pasting some embed code.
With Audioblogger giving up the ghost, this will be the second free mobcasting tool shuttering its doors within the last year. Some of you may remember my previous posts about Audlink.com, which also provided a free mobcasting service. They shut down without any warning earlier this year. While there's no reason to suspect that tools like Gabcast or Hipcast will vanish any time soon, the trend doesn't bode well, and reinforces my long-held argument that we need to have an open source mobcasting tool that can be installed easily on a local phone number, without concerns that the company hosting it will disappear unexpectedly. Meanwhile, services like Melodeo.com are making it possible for people to hear podcasts over their mobile phone, you need to subscribe to an Internet data plan for it to work. The beauty of tools like Audlink and Audioblogger is that they worked with regular phones - no Internet access required. And for communities with limited Internet access and poor mobile Internet infrastructure, mobcasting could prove to be an excellent way to allow the public to participate in podcasting - both listening and recording - without worrying about their lack of Internet access. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:23 PM
October 5, 2006
Passages: My Tour of Duty with Aubrey and Maturin
This morning while taking the train to work, I completed a journey that began nearly two and a half years ago. I turned the final page of Blue at the Mizzen, the last book in Patrick O'Brian's 20-part naval epic known as the Aubrey-Maturin series. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, you probably know the movie inspired by the series: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. The movie version is loosely based on the 10th book in the series, peppered with scenes and quotes from perhaps a dozen other books. In it, we get to meet the dashing naval captain Jack Aubrey and his best friend, naval surgeon, Stephen Maturin, as they sail around South America chasing a powerful French frigate. (In the book they were actually chasing an American frigate; it was the War of 1812, after all.)
The movie, one of my all-time favorites, inspired me to read Master and Commander, the first book in the series. Little did I know at the time that I'd spend the next 30 months absorbed by it and 19 other books. The books cover a span from 1800 to 1816, beginning with Aubrey and Maturin's first encounter at a concert to the peace following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In the intervening years, I got to know both characters as intimately as any in literature. Even though I always pictured Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany as the characters, in the books they are much more layered and nuanced than those portrayed in the movie. Aubrey is a brave, inspiring sea-captain, yet he constantly mixes metaphors incorrectly and blunders even the simplest of jokes. He is a loving, but unfaithful husband, fumbling over bad business dealings and childhood racial prejudices. Maturin is even more complex - the most brilliant surgeon in the fleet, he's also one of its most accomplished spies, a polyglot with a photographic memory. He's also an aloof misanthrope, uncomfortable in the presence of women and children, weak-minded in the presence of opium and coca leaves. They are personal opposites, yet endlessly loyal to each other.
The books gave me a grand tour of the Napoleonic world, from the shores of the Baltic to the Spice Islands of Indonesia to the mountains of Peru. The geographic breadth of the books is stunning; thankfully there's even an atlas you can buy to follow along for those occasions where you find yourself lost. But it's the immersion in 19th century British naval culture that's most extraordinary about the books. From the moment you begin the series, you are inculcated in their damp, salty world, with all the colorful nautical terms used in the period. It probably took me three or four books to get a hang of it, but after that, I was finally able to navigate the differences between larboard and starboard, sheets and braces, skysails and studdensails, bights and bitter ends, foc'sles and quarterdecks. Early on, I downloaded an archaic naval dictionary for my mobile phone, so I could look up terms on the fly; eventually I read A Sea of Words, the unofficial dictionary for the series, to immerse myself even further in the diction. In the end, I probably mastered just a fraction of the hundreds of nautical terms used throughout the series.
And now I've come to the end. It's a bittersweet moment for me, having gotten to know Aubrey, Maturin and scores of other characters over the last two years, loving many, hating some, but always thoroughly absorbed. It's been the most satisfying literary experience of my life.
So what am I going to read next? The first book in the series, of course. I always felt I missed half of what was going on because I didn't understand the naval lexicon yet. I don't plan to start re-reading the whole series again, but who knows - the Aubrey-Maturin series are as difficult a habit to break as Maturin's love of the poppy. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:33 AM
October 3, 2006
A Colonial Experiment in Citizen Journalism
The September issue of Delta Sky magazine included a fascinating article on America's first newspaper. Published almost exactly 316 years ago by Benjamin Harris in Boston, the four-page paper was known as Publick Occurrences: both Forreign and Domestick. Full of stories lifted from English broadsides and overheard on the streets of Boston, Publick Occurrences was hardly quality journalism by modern standards. Harris, meanwhile, was a bigot and an anti-Catholic, leading journalism historian John Tebbel, to quip, "[I]t is safe to say, no major American institution has been launched by so unworthy a pioneer."
In the inaugural issue, Harris stated that he would publish the paper once a month, though would consider doing so more often "if any Glut of Occurrences happen." (I simply love that phrase.) According to the article,
It contained no news less than a month old, and its intentions, at least as Harris explained them, were honorable. His paper, the publisher told his readers in a front-page notice, would print "Memorable Occurrents of Divine Providence" as well as "Circumstances of Publique Affairs . . . which may not only direct their thoughts at all times, but at some times also to assist their Businesses and Negotiations." Further, Harris wrote, Publick Occurrences was being offered to the residents of Boston "[t]hat some thing may be done toward Curing, or at least the Charming, of that Spirit of Lying which prevails among us; wherefore, nothing shall be entered but what we have reason to believe is true, repairing to the best foundations for our information." If someone came to Harris with information that was not true, some "malicious Raiser of a false Report," the publisher would expose the person's dishonesty in the very next issue. "It is Suppos'd that none will dislike this Proposal, but such as intend to be guilty of so villainous a Crime."
Three of its four pages were jammed with dense type. There were no headlines between stories, so one story would blend into another without a pause or segue. The fourth page, amazingly, was totally blank, the idea being that readers of the paper would jot down comments or contribute their own news, then pass it along to another reader. More than three centuries before Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor began writing about networked journalism, citizen journalism and citizen's media, Publick Occurences was paving the way for The People Formally Known As the Audience to participate in the creation of news.
Unfortunately, Harris' innovative, but ethically flawed journal was doomed from the start. The colonial British authorities did not look kindly upon his newspaper. They were upset with him publishing what they considered diplomatically provocative hearsay; even worse, he never bothered paying for a publishing license. Soon after the first issue was published, they published their own document banning the newspaper:
The Governour and Council having had the perusal of the said Pamphlet, and finding that therein is contained Reflections of a very high nature: As also sundry doubtful and uncertain Reports, do hereby manifest and declare their high Resentment and Disallowance of said Pamphlet, and Order that the same be Suppressed and called in.
With that, Publick Occurences came to an ignominious end. Embittered by the experience, Harris left the colonies and returned to England. But the stage had been set for a flowering of homegrown, independent newspapers across the colonies, even if they didn't embrace his bold, yet simple experiment in citizen journalism.
Today, only one copy of the newspaper is still known to exist, and the Massachusetts Historical Society has published a digital version of it. Unfortunately, they only published the three typeset pages; the citizen journalism that might have been scribbled on the fourth blank page remains a mystery. I wonder if it's because the page was blank - and thus uninteresting to archivists - or if it wasn't deemed historical enough for public consumption. Either way, I wish they had included it. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:39 PM
Keeping a Promise
Sunday evening I left the hospital, in preparation of flying back to DC on Monday. I didn't know how to say goodbye to Dave, even though my goodbye might be my final one. So I told him I'd see him soon, saying that I'd return to Denver at the end of the work week. "I'll see you soon," I repeated, two or three times, not sure how to fill the deafening silence. Then out of nowhere, I added, "I promise."
I hadn't planned on saying that; it just came out. As soon as I said it, though, I started to regret it, knowing that there was no way I could know whether I would see him alive again. Yet saying goodbye - the final Goodbye - seemed out of the question as well. I felt that if Dave thought I was saying Goodbye with a capital G, it would tell him that I didn't expect him to live. I'm still not sure I will, but I knew in my heart he needed that hope. Not just the hope in seeing me again, but seeing all of us again.
Still, my sudden exhortation of "I promise" might have gone too far, since I don't know what will happen between now and Friday. Fortunately, Dave has started to show some small, but important gains. His organs are working stronger. His fever is staying down. They even took him off the ventilator for 90 minutes yesterday - something that would have killed him 24 hours earlier. For the first time all week, the doctors are saying that there is a small chance he may pull through this. It won't be easy, but then again, they didn't expect him to make it through last Friday night. One doctor said he was "astonished" by Dave's improvement, but warns that he's hardly out of the woods yet.
Now I'm home with the cats, back at work for a few days, eagerly awaiting each call from Susanne. So far, so good. And if Dave keeps fighting like hell, perhaps I'll be able to keep my promise after all. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:42 PM
Jon Stewart Reports for CNN
Given everything that's been going on over the last few days, I almost forgot to mention Jon Stewart's hilarious take on CNN's I-Report service. I-Report is CNN's way of allowing members of the public to submit their own photos and video to CNN; the most newsworthy clips are aired on CNN and their website.
Jon says:
Yes, CNN wants you to spare them what is currently the most arduous part of what they do - reporting! And not just anywhere - apparently they want you to get as close as possible to an exploding building during a hurricane. 'Gee, this assignment looks dangerous. You know who'd be good for that story? John Q. Schmuck.'
Perhaps the best part of this story is that CNN had enough of a sense of humor to run Stewart's piece - yes, as an I-Report. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:08 PM
October 1, 2006
The Wall That Separates Them
One of the most difficult aspects of coping with Dave's illness is the fact that he hasn't met Kayleigh yet. Since Kayleigh was born premature, we dreaded the thought of taking her on an airplane before she was at least six months old. And being wheelchair-band, Dave could not travel very easily, particularly on airplanes. Then came the move to DC, the job.... We always assumed we'd get to see him over the holidays.
Today's been a better day than yesterday for Dave.... His temperature and white count are down, while his lungs and kidneys seem to be working relatively better. He's awake for several hours a day, and can communicate by nodding or blinking his eyes. There is no doubt about his alertness; as long as his strength holds, he doesn't hesitate to respond to yes or no questions. Having said all that, the doctors have made it clear that it will take a miracle for his body to recover from the massive infection that's overtaken him.
I'm sitting here in the ICU waiting room with Kayleigh and Susanne's cousin Mike. The rest of the family is spending time with Dave while he sleeps. The waiting room, by coincidence, is adjacent to Dave's room. Sometimes when it's quiet in here I can hear Dave's music, particularly when his Parade of the Wedding Party - the orchestral version of the string quartet he composed for our wedding ceremony - reaches its crescendo. And sometimes when I'm visiting him, talking about his music, I can hear Kayleigh crying in the waiting room.
Because Kayleigh is so young, the doctors will not allow her in the ICU. And Dave is too weak to leave his room and visit her somewhere safe. Only a wall separates them, but I fear it may be a wall that wall never be breeched.
I would give anything for a sledgehammer. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:33 PM
