Internet: Semantics: 'ReadWriteWeb' explains semantic tagging service

Semantic Tagging Service Zigtag (Finally!) Launches

by Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb,Dec29,2k8)

It was two years ago that we first heard of Zigtag, a service that promised to "transform how people search, save and share knowledge & information." Now, after a nine-month private beta, this semantic tagging service has finally launched. But is Zigtag's bookmarking tool intelligent enough for 2009?

About Zigtag

For those of you who don't know, Zigtag is another entry in the social bookmarking collection of tools. Like delicious, Diigo, and Ma.gnolia, Zigtag helps you categorize your bookmarks and share them with others. When Zigtag went into development, bookmarking was all the rage. The company's goal was to make bookmarking easier by adding a layer of semantics to the tags themselves.

Zigtag, you see, understands the meaning of the words you assign to a tag. When you tag to a page, Zigtag actually assigns it meaning rather than just a simple word. If that sounds revolutionary...well, that's because it is. Sort of.

Not the Only Semantic Tagging Service

Because of Zigtag's slow progress, they can no longer claim to be the only semantic tagging application available today. Another, Faviki, also offers an intelligent tagging service based on structured data. Both services attempt to address the problem of user-generated tags. That is, even though what you tag "NY" may be the same link that I tagged "New York," no bookmarking service ever knew the tags were related.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Zigtag and Faviki attack this problem in different ways. Faviki suggests tags for you to use, not from a community of users and their tagging history, but from structured information extracted from DBpedia, a community-maintained database created by extracting information from Wikipedia.

Zigtag, however, eschews suggestions and lets you tag items as you wish. It doesn't matter what personal system you use for tagging (one word, two words, underscores, plus signs, etc.) because Zigtag understands the meaning of the tags. In Zigtag, a link tagged "New York" is returned along with other links tagged "New_York." Zigtag also understands that one tag may have different meanings and groups those items accordingly. For example, there's a New York and Company clothing store and a New York in England that may have been tagged "new york." That level of understanding is something that's unique to Zigtag and sets it apart from other bookmarking services.

Thanks to the service's ability to understand meaning, Zigtag users can join groups related a shared interest. Since Zigtag knows what you mean by your tags, it is, in theory, easier to find links you would be interested in on Zigtag than with other bookmarking services.

This blog has experimented with numerous tagging schemes, but always on the fly and without a full review of past schemes, which m+t have harvested more consistency. The idea of Zigtag, however, comes into its own around a given community of users within the general community of Zigtaggers, the more narrow community able to stabilize protocols and usages, even using an in-group's jargon, technical terms, and coinages--NuSpels, if you cawt the kind uv thing I have in mind.

Technics: MicroSoft's concession to Interoperability and its failure to provide in IE8

<>span style="font-weight:bold;">PressPass interviewed MS's Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Server and Tools Division, MicroSoft Corporation. "New Microsoft Interoperability Principles Ensure Open Connections and Promote Data Portability" Feb21,2k8.

Q&A: Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Server and Tools Division, discusses Microsoft’s new interoperability principles and the steps the company is taking to increase the openness of its products.

Asking the questions (only the first Q of the interview is included here) PressPass: Can you start by providing a high-level overview of today’s announcement?

Technotes, by Technowlb

Muglia: Sure. The announcement covers broad and important changes to our technology and business practices designed to increase the openness of our high-volume products to make it easier to develop highly-interoperable information systems. The changes are embodied in

Four interoperability principles to which we have committed [ourselves as a corporation].

First, to provide an open connection to our high-volume enterprise products;

second, promote data portability;

third, continue to enhance our support for industry standards;

and finally, to create more opportunities to strengthen dialogue and engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.

Together, these principles significantly change the way we share information about our technologies and products. These changes help increase choice and opportunity for developers, partners, customers and competitors, which is one of our top long-term goals.

In this general context, IE Blog offers an extremely engaging article on IE Interoperability. Discussing "Quirks mode" and "Stamdards mode, this source offers a pithhy remark worthy of reflection: "Each version of each browser has its own Standards mode, because each version of each browser improves on its web standards support. There’s Safari 3’s Standards mode, Firefox 2’s Standards mode, IE6’s Standards mode, and IE7’s Standards mode, and they’re all different. We want to make IE8’s Standards mode much, much better than IE7’s Standards mode."

I finally found the actual webpage for MicroSoft's Interoperability Principles: Interoperability Principles -- Open Connections, Standards Support, Data Portability Published: February 21, 2008 | Updated: February 21, 2008a>.

Arts Profile: Music: Singer/rapper/poet who makes an artform of cursing and 'talkin' dirty' ...

A protégé of Dr. Dre, rapper Eminem emerged in 1999 as one of the most controversial rappers to ever grace the genre. Using his biting wit and incredible skills to vent on everything from his unhappy childhood to his contempt for the mainstream media, his success became the biggest crossover success the genre had seen since Dre's solo debut seven years earlier. The controversy over his lyrics was the best publicity any musician could afford, and being the first Caucasian rapper to make a significant impact in years may have given him a platform not afforded to equally talented African-American rappers. A gifted producer as well, his talents always seemed overshadowed by his media presence, which was a mix between misunderstood genius and misogynistic homophobe. Both may be true, but his message spoke to legions of disaffected youth who had few role models in the rap world who could relate to the white lower-class experience.

Pop Music, by Earfix

He was born Marshall Mathers in St. Joseph, Missouri, USA

Read More of this splendid bio at Amazon MP3 ("music downloads for any device"), plus a complete discography of E's recorded albums, and an online marketplace with shopping cart for purchase of his MP3 Amazon releases, no doubt a lead for attracting buyers to the new Amazon website that's directly in competition with Apple's iTunes -- my past first choice for buying music downloads hitherto. Here on Amazon MP3, Eminem is a 'spotl+t artist for May' and he's #4 on the list of "25 artists to watch in May," says the Amazon MP3 merchandising text, the whole page indeed and many linked to it on this website in the season of its initial marketing.

Did I buy, you ask, a US$8.99-priced version of E's recently-released new hip-hop curse-fest, Release? -- No, but I did go for the cheapest version, that option being one of three; my cheapo option I later noticed (in a post-purchase insite) was the only one not labelled "Explicit" (these two versions or purchase-portals cost a buck more ... so, I began to wonder whether my version is full of blips or instead of that something like, let's say, sound-emptied dead moments, excisions, but even without such distortions to cover up or erase out precisely the over-the-line words of Eminem's vocabulary and metaphory, I ask, can you actually achieve a mature appreciation/critque without experiencing explicitly the way (and with the words he chose in performance and recording, all the words before the blips or cuts removed them, those words...)--can you attain as good an aesthetic experience of what Eminem has to offer?, his art such as it be.

But I should not shy away from my inability to make an online purchase of Release due to the fact as I belatedly noticed--only USA residents can buy online at Amazon MP3. Hrrrumpppffft!

Principium Consumers Hub

On purchase matters, you (residents in the USA) can buy individual songs and slowly collect the songs of the tracks of a given album, single by single, if you want. Just to give you a picture of how Amazon MP3 is competing with iTunes.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Sports: Soccer: Chicago Fire trashes Toronto Football Club

. "Toronto FC midfielder Amado Guevara and Chicago Fire midfielder Mike Banner battle for the ball during the second half in Toronto on Saturday. (Pix: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)." Paul Attfield in Globe & Mail

Sports: Basketball: LA's Lakers vs. Houston Rockets

Kobe Bryant, star and guard for the Lakers' basketball team, in unguarded moment chewing his game-shirt while team heads into a fall -- Houston Rockets 99 - Lakers 87 (May16,2k9, L A Times). One fan called it a "fiasco."

This was the sixth game in a seven-game series of the SemiFinals for the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association.

The winner of this physical, sometimes-testy series will advance to the conference finals to face the Denver Nuggets, who've been resting since eliminating Dallas on Wednesday night.

Kobe Bryant admits it's a mystery why the Lakers have been so wildly inconsistent against a team few expected would reach the second round, let alone push the top seed in the West to a Game 7.

So, it's onward to the finals against the Denver Nuggets, who won entry to the Finals by defeating Dallas.

Arts: Poetry: Poetry Out Loud awards national winners of competition

"Poetry Spoken Out Loud Gaining Popularity in US," by Deborah Block (May14,2k9, Voice of America).

On Tuesday evening at the White House, President Obama hosted an event celebrating poetry, music and the spoken word. In the United States, there has been a resurgence of interest in poetry, especially poems that are recited out loud. For the past several years, thousands of high school students have been learning about poetry through memorization and performance in a program called Poetry Out Loud. The top performer from each state competes in a national championship. It took place recently in Washington DC.

Wiyaka wins competition

This is the Poetry Out Loud champion from the western state of South Dakota who recently competed in the 2009 national competition in Washington. Wiyaka is a Native American whose family name is His Horse is Thunder. Her father is an Indian chief and she is related to Sitting Bull, a famous chief in the 19th century who fought to protect his tribe's land. Native American tribes are known for storytelling, and Wiyaka says she is keeping that tradition alive, in her own way, by reciting poetry to audiences.

"I just want them to feel something when they hear it," she said.

Rebirth of art form

John Barr, head of the Poetry Foundation says much of the poetry written during the past 25 years was difficult to understand, and the public lost interest.

"Fine poems were being written but they were not the kind you would read in a newspaper," he said. "We're trying to get good poetry back in front of the general public."

The resurgence of recited poetry was influenced by two modern trends, beginning with poetry slams that started in the late 1980s. They are usually held in music clubs, where people can recite their own poems. The other influence is rap in hip-hop music.

More than reciting a poem

Students who compete in Poetry Out Loud do not recite their own poetry. They choose from a long list of poems.

Kareem Sayegh from the midwestern state of Illinois came in third in the national competition. His parents are from Egypt and he says he has been influenced by Egyptian poetry.

Kareem says he makes subtle gestures when he recites poems, since the contestants lose points if they are overly dramatic. "I just use my hand lightly and and then it becomes somewhat clearer," Kareem said.

Will Farley from Virginia recited a poem by one of his favorite poets, Langston Hughes, a well known African-American poet in the last century. When he was a university student in New York, Hughes wrote, "Theme for English B."

Will's interpretation of that poem helped him take the top prize. "Before Poetry Out Loud, poetry didn't mean much to me and Poetry Out Loud changed that," Farley said. "For me, poetry is alive, something I can connect with and feel, and express myself with."

Will won a $20,000 college scholarship, which he says will help him with his future ambitions. In the words of Langston Hughes, "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

Words: Meanings: A contentious word, that "factoid," to be sure, Bernie ...what's that you say?

As entitled, I'm repeating my immediately preceding blog-entry, but only its lower half (whereas the upper half, the actual factoid in review has since been posted to topleft [sidebar top] on refWrite frontpage). Now, I'm floating-up (Frye) the lower half of the previous entry, and I shall say why after quoting myself, even at the risk of repetitiousness:

I developed a little tidbit now on the frontpage at the top of the r+ts+d s+dbar, where I repristinate the word "factoid." Why bother? I bother because I heard the word defamed on TV--the Fox worldwide cablenews show that recently carried Bernard Goldberg, media critic, former CBS reporter, a serious guy I otherwise respect for his analysis and opinions ... he made "factoid" to mean a fake "fact," a fact so weak or sickly or so fuzzy in meaning that it just did not qualify as a genuine fact (at least, I guess, in the professional journalistic way that said defamer claims to represent). Ah well, I think and use the word otherwise in an otherwise world he can't discern, apparently. Thus, I've already copied the refWrite factoid presented above, to the spot where the former, usual pen&ink image has been pushed below the new factoid spot. I'm sorry that the reader must put up with the lack of proper aligment of all the items on my little list.

The point being, what is a fact?, and what possible constructive meanings could "factoid" have?

I shall have to find a visual semiote (other than speech-bound typography) for this new series on fact, factoids, and manufacting.

Technics: Blogging refWrite: a factoid is not necessarily a bad thing

Factoid refWrite

Here's a complex decontextualized ("floated" when dissociatively quoted, litcrit Northop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism, or for that matter Paul Ricoeur's Metaphor) but that takes me far afield from this list of computing systems with which refWrite readers connected to us:

MicroSoft Window .... 1078.... 70.05%
Apple .............................. 326.... 21.18%
Linux/Unix ...................... 89.... 5.78%
Other Systems ................ 35.... 2.27%
Mobile Systems .............. 11.... 0.71%

May9,2k9

------------------------------------
I developed the little tidbit above, where I repristinate the word "factoid," because I heard it defamed on TV--the Fox worldwide cable news show that recently carried Bernard Goldberg, media critic, former CBS reporter ... he made "factoid" to mean a fake "fact," a fact so weak or sickly or so fuzzy in meaning that it just did not qualify as a genuine fact (at least, I guess, in the professional journalistic way that said defamer claims to represent). Ah well, I think and use the word otherwise in an otherwise world he can't discern, apparently. Thus, I've already copied the refWrite factoid presented above, to the spot where the usual pen&ink image has been pushed below the new factoid spot. I'm sorry that the reader must put up with the lack of proper aligment of all the items on my little list.

Movies: Box Office: new Star Trek movie whammos the box office this weekend. But here, it's raining

I've never viewed a Star Trek flick in a movie theatre, or in the last several years, any other film either. I've come to enjoy several of the space-trekking series of episodes on TV as well replays of the movies, but not the early one/s where William Shatner stars. I like/d Spock, but he's wearing thin in the reruns (TV series) and replays (movies on TV) especially. For some unknown reason, Star Wars movies seem far more durable to me; that flick is scheduled to be "episoded" in 2010, but these will be built around minor characters that appeared in the story of the movies. So much for the chief theme-competition between Treks and Wars.

Back on the main track:

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is on its way to boldly going where no Star Trek movie has gone before: to a huge opening weekend. The film bowed at 7 p.m. Thursday night and grossed an impressive $7 million in 3,849 locations. Sure, those numbers were boosted by the geeky fanboys who were salivating to catch the movie as soon as possible. Still, such a great start should help propel Star Trek's weekend gross to as high as $75 million. Quite impressive for a franchise that was considered dead a few years ago.

Nicole Smith so reports on Hollywood Insider (May8,2k9).

Movies, by FlickSleuth

Another report forecasts a weekend take even larger than what Smith forecasts.

If early comments (there are lots on the cited webpage) are a good indication, the new movie takes the brand into another dimension.

In passing, I should add that on TV I've found the series Andromeda often engaging, but onot always. I could stand only so much of the series The Battlestar Galactica but it mercifully substituted the old-stock f-words and derivatives to the neologism "frikkin'," which was a good move (a substitution word I want to discuss further later in regard to ths Galactica TV context). It's released its finale episode, its finale. Good riddance. I'm hoping for a lot more from the new trekkie flick, but of course it could be years before, presumably, it moves from the theatres to DVD rentals or TV.

Update:

Star Trek starts off fast.... -- Laremy Legel "Movie Review: JJ Abrams gets it right with new 'Star Trek'" (Film.com via seattlepi.com)

slows down a bit for a few laughs, and then furiously culminates ... but not before setting up the franchise for the next decade. At its Treky heart, this is an origin story: how Captain Kirk got to the Enterprise, and how his good pals Scotty, Spock, Uhura, "Bones" McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov came to join him on that iconic vessel. We're transported to a time before the entire Shatner mythologies, with Chris Pine taking the helm as the new Kirk. He's very, very good in this film, far better than I've seen him, and his performance here gives me a lot of hope for the compulsory sequels.

Sports: Baseball: Drug penalty of suspension and 7 millions fine hit LA Dodger's superbatter, Manny Rodriques

Dave Sheinin, Washington Post Staff Writer, (May 7, 2K9), "Dodger's Ramirez Suspended 50 Games."

The riveting, uplifting story of Manny Ramirez's transformation from cancerous malcontent in Boston to dreadlocked, beloved eccentric in Los Angeles was derailed today by the news that the Dodgers slugger has been suspended 50 games for violating baseball's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.

Sports / Major League Baseball, by Sportikos

The Sheinin artcle is a good read about a sad story. But the wealthy baseball player will payback 7 million, from a $25 million contract.

The Dodgers are in the lead with a record 13-game winning streak. "I'm sorry about this whole situation," the slugger said.

Music: Classical: I got an ad email from iTunes and impulse-bawt 27 Mozart Piano Concertos and am in heaven on earth

I'm listening to Piano Concerto #6 in B-Flat which has three movements (Allegro Aperto, Andante un Poco Adagio, and the final one to which I'm listening now Rondeau (Allegro), performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy & Philharmonia Orchestra, disk Mozart: The Piano Concertos. There are 27 concertos overall, most have 3 movements. These so far don't bolster the fictional image of Mozart in the movie Amadeus, so far these concertos are less frenetic by far than what the movie conveys--from enthusiastic young prodigy to driven old man writing masses for the dead, anticipating his own...perhaps.

These concertos are a different world, with an over-riding gentleness (how's that for a rather self-contradictory phrase).

Classical Music, by Museaos

Movies: Review: Questions to readers who've seen this film

A. O. Scott's movie-review article in New York Times (Feb18,2k9) discourses captivatingly on "Katyn" (2007). The director is Andrzek Wajda. Says reviewer Scott:

The first scene in “Katyn,” Andrzej Wajda’s solemn and searing new film, takes place on a bridge somewhere in Poland in mid-September 1939. The bridge is aswarm with people fleeing in opposite directions. Panicked families trying to escape the Germans, who invaded on the first of the month, collide with equally terrified compatriots coming from the eastern part of the country, scene of a recent Soviet intervention.

Scott has a wonderful write-up of an apparently-exemplary movie that reconstructs history to cast l+t on a horrible moment in a horrible war and crosscurrents of wars in Poland 1939. I was born a year later in July in the USA.

If you've seen the movie already, use the comment facility below to convey your impression of Wajda's Katyn (2007), briefly.

Had you heard of the Katyn Forest Massacre before you saw the movie?

Cinema, by Kinematographikos

Does the Polish Jewish minority population receive any focus in the movie?

Has the movie been released in DVD for rental?

Is the tone unrelenting? Is there any agreeable comic relief?

Make a comment in answer, please -- as O. A. Scott's movie review is so well written and so in awe of Wajda's cinematic achievement that he certainly leads me to seek more info. Where better to comment on recent movie, than here in refWrite Backpage?

Sports: Golf: Tiger Woods still struggling to get back to form after his knee-surgery

Mike Cranston AP Sports Writer (May3,2k9) gives us a glimpse of Tiger Woods' slow recovery:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Tiger Woods shot a 30 on the front nine in a seven-under 65 in the opening round of the Quail Hollow Championship, he appeared poised to dominate on a tough course with a major-like feel.

But Woods was still working out the kinks in his fifth tournament back from knee surgery. Entering Sunday two shots out of the lead, Woods wasted several birdie chances and one eagle opportunity, closing with 10 straight pars for a 72.

He finished at 9-under 286, good for fourth place, two shots behind winner and buddy Sean O'Hair.

"I've been very pleased with some of my progress. I'm also not so pleased with some of it," Woods said. "It's been spotty, streaky. I just need to get a little more consistent."

Sports Note, by Sportikos

The gentleman sports hero may well turn out to be the all-time king of golf. At least, he's got a sporting chance.

Semiotics: Earth Day: photo set on a digital-page, juxtaposed to a text of Earth piety and politix

REALTORS.com photo (above, of course) and text (below)
for a particular Earth Day piety & politics.

The ad's message in textual form (alphabetized, fontized, written!--Roland Barthes); but, so texted, is precisely juxtapositioned to a quite different semiotic-medium (the medium being in this second case the digitization-driven graphics where a specific electrodigitally-designed picture in colours and occupying a specific number of pixels, to attract, "captivate" (Strauss), "shimmer" (Seerveld), "shiver" (Dorothy Day), to stimulate however fleetingly the human perceiver's imagination

Established in 1970 by then Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day began as a nationwide environmental protest against the abuses common with major industries at the time. The concerted effort rallied 20 million people, and led to the organization of the Environmental Protection Agency [USA Federal EPA]. Today, the focus of the Earth Day campaign centers around finding clean sources of energy to help create a healthy and diverse world for generations to come. As a homeowner, making a difference on Earth Day is easy and cost effective.

Keeping in line with the Earth Day campaign’s clean energy iniatitives, take a look at Nicole Maxwell’s list of energy-saving tips to see if there are ways you can cut down on your household energy waste and on your energy bill:

“Happy Earth Day! Today I will be sharing some tips on how to green your home on a budget. If every American home replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an Energy Star bulb, like a compact fluorescent, by some estimates we would save enough energy to light up more than 3 million homes for a year. In the average home, 75 percent of all electricity used to power appliances is used while those appliances are turned off, according to Matt Golden at San Francisco home performance consultant Sustainable Spaces. Think phone chargers, laptops and DVD players. If you’re not using it, unplug it.”

Semiote Analytics, by SeMiOtIkOs

Energy waste can take its toll on the environment and your wallet. Taking a closer look at how energy efficient your home is will undoubtedly save you money over time. What’s better than helping the environment and saving money? Getting paid to do both, of course. The Obama stimulus plan provides credit and incentives for homeowners making green upgrades to their homes. With so many reasons to act now, doing your part is easier than ever.

Next to an Earth Day rhetoric-and-discourse that cites passionately and compassionately the grandeur of the Creator/Creation relation (yes, the spine and underbelly of an ad-worthy rhetoric), including on Earth Day the modally-different law-structures for creation and all creatures, including us humans of course--sphere by sphere, each relation in each societal sphere recognized in its due ("due recognition").

Calendar: April 22, 2009

Back to the digital graphics quoted from REALTORS.com at the top of this page. With this particular ambiguous, fuzzy, hazy near-picturation, but with a blue blue-green sl+tly neon-lit optimism, overlapping near-spheres, even good-cheer, this superb graphic rings true as a vision for an environment-loving society. Yet, it is not just neonlit eye-candy, with its full shine-thru of the sun (or, is it the moon?) as in . One m+t read it as actually a graphics case of "troubled cosmos" format (Seerveld says there are basically only 8 or a dozen of these formats in the whole history of Western art painting).

Lingering a moment, you notice below all its br+t optimism, you notice its troubled sea darkening down where it drains full-darkly into the solid black colour of the bottom sector the graphic, the bottom sector also handsomely (so-aesthetically-sweet electrodigitally) doubles as the background for the poster-label text which reads in two simple lines: Earth Day, and in a second line with a smaller font-type saying, April 22.

Humour: Dirty Talk: TV anchors use faggotry to mock Anti-Tax Tea Parties, says homo

In an article on Fox News reporting mistakenly that the coded obscenity played with at length by TV anchors and their guests in hatred against the Anti-Tax rallies, those expressions Fox Politics says originated in Frat Houses (implying the terms arose at the universities, not today's internet-porn version of "frat houses"). Actually, the tea-metaphor was used "humourously" for faggot-conversation in gay bars as long as forty years ago; the deed itself took place in "tea houses" (gay-sex bath houses), so I was led to believe. "Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor: Cable anchors and guests covered the anti-tax tea party protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references" (Apr16,2k9). Make that faggot-sexual references. And think consumption of the butch's urine by the nellie tea-drinker (different from a "Golden Shower" where the urine is not necessarily ingested). A number of websites viciously speak of "the Homosexual Agenda" and insultingly use homo as tho it were synonomous with "Gay," faggot, etc. Bullsh-t! It's dishonest to confuse the Gay Agenda (which is real) with simply being homo or even with wanting legal recognition of a 2woman or a 2man intimate union. But that's not marriage, in this homo's thawtful opinion. Anyway, here's the generally informative article from Fox:

For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.

For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word "teabagging" in a sentence.

Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat [or gay-sex bath] house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth.

So when the anti-tax "tea party" protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests -- who for weeks had all but ignored the story -- covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed "teabagging" references with analyst David Gergen's more staid commentary on how Republicans are still "searching for their voice."

"It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face. [Gergen was Cooper's "straight man".]

MSNBC's David Shuster weaved a tapestry of "Animal House" humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.

The protests, he explained, amount to "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."

He described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless," and continued: "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." Shuster also noted how the protesters "whipped out" the demonstrations this past weekend. ...

Tea Party participants were not amused. The events were held in dozens of cities across the country, and while some demonstrators were criticized for wielding off-topic and sometimes insensitive protest signs, most took to the streets to speak out against government spending.

Dirty Humour, by Homo

Andy Cobban on YouTube

Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, said the media coverage was "insulting," reacting specifically to CNN reporter Susan Roesgen's combative interviews with Illinois demonstrators in which she declared that the protests were "anti-CNN" and supported by FOX News. She left the teabagging jokes to her colleagues, though.

"I've never seen anything like it," Bozell said. "The oral sex jokes on (CNN) and particularly MSNBC on teabagging ... they had them by the dozens. That's how insulting they were toward people who believe they're being taxed too highly."

Max Pappas, public policy vice president at FreedomWorks -- a small-government group which promoted the tea parties -- said it's a "shame" media outlets cracked jokes at a genuine "grassroots uprising."

"I think what that reveals is how worried they are that this might actually be something serious. You make fun of things you're afraid of, I'd say," Pappas said.

If anyone thinks the orally charged remarks on mainstream cable were just a coincidence, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's segments over the past week with guest, Air America's Ana Marie Cox, would dissolve all doubt. Their on-air gymnastics, dancing around the double entendre of the week, looked like live-action Beavis and Butthead.

By one count, the two of them used the word "teabag" more than 50 times on one show. And on Monday, Cox even let the viewers in on their joke -- referencing Urbandictionary.com, a site which offers a number of colorful definitions for the term "teabagging." [Not really, the term is hedged and "fratted" and insufficiently a urine analysis.]

"Well, there is a lot of love in teabagging," Cox said. "It is curious, though, as you point out, they do not use the verb 'teabag.' It might be because they're less enthusiastic about teabagging than some of the more corporate conservatives who seem to have taken to it quite easily."

Jenny Beth Martin, a Republican activist who helped organize one protest in Atlanta, said she's not too worried about the protests being dismissed by some media outlets. She estimated 750,000 people attended more than 800 protests in all 50 states, and that at the very least the local media and community newspapers documented it.

"Our message definitely got out where it needed to get," she said.

And what of those of us who went to no public assembly but had cups of Red Rose tea together in a kitchen or living room, watching the telecasts? Add a million.

On the other side, there was a mention of the Gay Tea Party in Boston Harbour. Now, there you m+t have seen some lowdown dirty "teabagging" of the metaphorical kind, because aggressive Gay agendistas promote public sex.

-- Homo Christian

Arts: Architecture: Top prize in discipline goes to Swiss, Peter Zumthor

Lawrence Pollard of the BBC reports "Swiss architect wins top honour" (Apr13,2k9):

The most prestigious award for architecture, the Pritzker Prize, has been awarded to ... Peter Zumthor [most of whose works are located in his home country of Switzerland].

The prize, worth $100,000, is given for a body of work across a career, and is mainly valued for the prestige and commissions it can bring.

Zumthor's works are found mainly in his native Switzerland, as well as elsewhere in Europe and the US.

His most famous commission is the thermal baths in Vals in France.

Architecture, by Archibald

Here an artist--who is not celebratarian, so to speak--is recognized for his craftsmanship and creativity. He was trained as a cabinet-maker and has attended to his interiors and materials with special care over some 30 years.

He says he doesn't ally himself to an ideology or school of architecture, but aims above all at creating an interior suited to place and use, simple principles aimed at producing human architecture.

One extraordinary recent building is a chapel built by wrapping concrete round a wigwam structure of tree trunks.

Zumthor then burnt away the trunks, leaving the imprint of the wood as the texture of the interior, which retains the smell of charred wood.

Congratulations to the artist and to the Prize judges. Refreshing!

Technics: Google wants to become a corporate Pontiff of Books

A projected "Book Rights Registry" (which seems more like a proprietary "Google Books registry") is being orchestrated to control the registration of books worldwide, the English-language books being my keenest zone of interest (even to the point of longterm interest in orthography, semiotics > calligraphy, text design, text/imagery interlacements, perhaps intertwined with English or another/s language, perhaps random or novel alphabets like the Owlbirdbet). I love homemade books deploying graphic-imagery skills and text, even on interpenetrating aesthetic levels, nuancing from level to level, row by row (the perichoretic aesthetics of Vollenhoven [see Kuyvenhoven on the role that a trinitarian aesthetics had in V's thawt, and, I would add, in Seerveld's).

It matters if Google even nominally controls the books registry.

Indeed, "a registry can tell you who owns the content you found," in the first place.

Indeed, the finder has feelings of aborginality in this matter: s/he found! It! Perhaps, a ramifying sense of almost-creation of the found something, even as intangible as an insite mayhaps it be. But in the coming computer-driven age (that age is still in its youth, I would say) everything becomes totally paperized digitally (to coin an oxymoronic expression of my own). The thawt I am embellishing, as it may be expressed more clearly by Chris Castle, in the UK tech mag The Register, traceable back to his original post in the Music and Media section, Dec31,2k8: Castle's report is well worth the delve.

"As such a dominant player in the online world, Google will now occupy a unique gateway position that, if abused, could easily create a de facto monopoly. A situation where competition is removed from the market place by placing the keys in the hands of one company cannot, ultimately, be good for the consumer. This is a bridge too far," the British Booksellers Association noted.

Technotes, by Technowlb

The Castle article, apparently quite a newsbreaking report, dissect the Gooogle project:

If a competitor tried building a competing book registry by negotiating licenses for in-copyright works, that competitor would have to bear the startup costs — and the cost of licensing. If the competitor is rewarded for respecting authors’ rights by obtaining favorable terms, that advantage can be taken away by Google. Why? Because one of Google’s goodies from its dominant position in the settlement negotiation is “most favored nations” price protection.

The registry is contractually required to offer Google any better terms it would give to anyone using any data or resources that Google provides the registry, or that is of the type that Google provides. So even if a competitor wants to build a parallel infrastructure from scratch, and wasn’t using any of Google’s data—any reward for their legitimacy would be trumped by Google’s MFN. There is no advantage in “doing it right” except a clear conscience—an MFN inhibits competition.

I love Google, I blog on Blogger--nowadays owned by Google. I avail myself of other Google services and features, free! But, dear Sirs and Madames, Messiers et Mesdames toutes che`res, please Google take a more neutral stance than "Most Favored Nation" (MFV).

There's a juridics angle too.

There's also the market pressures of competition. Castle asks rhetorically and then answers:

"How about Yahoo!’s Open Content Alliance? Google leads OCA in scanning [books, other textual materials], and then there’s Google’s MFN. Now that may be kind of interesting to regulators. As one commentator noted, "[a]s a condition of settlement approval, the Registry should be required to negotiate and sign an antitrust consent decree with the Department of Justice.” Since ASCAP and BMI each already operate under consent decrees, there is a predicate for Justice Department scrutiny and "rate court" oversight of the registry, particularly given Google's market domination. Why should societies have to suffer the rate court burden when Google does not?

For this blog-entry, we have to leave the matter somewhat dangling, as we watch for further developments.

Movies: A Christmas flick list--what's yours?

Michael Nielsen, writing in Ezine Articles, presents his "Top Ten Christmas Films of All Time" --

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. A Christmas Story
3. A Christmas Carol (adopted from Charles Dickens)
4. Miracle on 34th Street
5. The Santa Clause
6. A Charlie Brown Christmas (animated)
7. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
8. Love Actually
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
10. White Christmas

Nielsen supplements his main list with a few citations flicks that are more "classic, Disney, and animated":

Mickey's Christmas Carol
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Frosty the Snowman
Elf
Nighmare before Christmas
A Walt Disney Christmas

Nielsen's write-ups are rather supine, and he fails to give us his criteria of selection. But, as he notes, many people are trying to decide what they'll watch on TV or on DVD at home during the hastening season. He also notes that, even without a Christmas thematic, first-run movies in the theatres and newly-released DVDS of all worldviews and genres get attention from viewers and theatre-goers this time of year.

Arts: Fred Astaire, a consummate dancer of the Movie Age

There's a new book out, being a biography of Fred Astaire the dance work of whom, in the comic vein mostly, set a dance-aesthetics standard that still holds. His dances, a body of artistic work from one dance routine to the next in a given movie, and from film to film, these choreographic accomplishments remain somehow normative today because of old movies that still dazzle us with his showmanship. His work was slanted by the mass-communications medium of the cinematographic camera's angle. He danced to the camera's eye for the future ticket-purchasing audience of each movie, and often gently deconstructed himself in his role, larger than any role in a movie, as big as life. Leading male dancer in the early movies which were viewed in movie theatres, Fred Astaire is an entertainer par excellence; and he became a bon vivant.

A fine boildown of an important theme of Jason Epstein's new book, Fred Astaire (Yale University Press), was recently recently posted on the American Heritage website. Jason Epstein, "Like kissing your sister: the sibling partnership that launched Fred Astaire into stardom" (posted Oct28,2k8).

In noting how important Adele Astaire was, we underscore an axiom of dance aesthetics -- at least of the dancer business and profession -- that we have to say male dancer or female dancer when we indulge ourselves in ranking the stars of movie dance and dance movies. The instant I think of Astaire's female partners, once he got into the movies, it's Ginger Rodgers who stands out, to my mind. She played with Fred in several memorable storyline dance-movies (really a form of "musical," carried over the top by fancy footwork).

Technics: I just discovered Gmail's voice and video chat

It only works with Firefox 2.0, InternetExplorer 6.0 (ugh!), Safari 3.0+, and Google Chrome. It uses YouTube, and requires dowloading the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in

Voice and video chat plug-in info page for Gmail.

I haven't yet discovered the relationship to this Gmail v&v chat with the Applebased iChat.app.

Technotes, by Technowlb

I'm looking forward to gettingh this set up properly.

Technowlb