Distracted

I feel like I have some explainin’ to do. For the one or two people who might look here expecting to see fresh material… well, I’ve been distracted.

Who do I blame first? There’s “the kid,” our high school freshman, who takes his own special brand of care and feeding. Then there’s the dog, who’s all about care and (especially) feeding. There’s my side gig as a writer (see http://www.ciconline.org/profiles and http://www.ciconline.org/teachingtips for some examples). And then there’s down time and distractions like cooking, reading, the Cape – much needed, never enough.

So, writing a blog, even occasionally, is on the back burner. Not forgotten; just not that high on the to-do list.

But, please do check back every once in a while. You (and I) might be surprised.
~~~

Speaking of distractions… here's my List of Recent Distractions:

Books:
Mark Twain’s Following the Equator
Youngme Moon’s Different
Charlene Li’s Groundswell

TV:
Iron Chef (and The Next Iron Chef)
Treme
Leverage
Castle
Holmes on Homes

Music:
Recent CD buys: Alejandro Escovedo (solid but slick), Cheryl Crow (funky chic), Los Lobos (masterful), Squeeze (they still rock), Eric Clapton (barely has a pulse), Brian Wilson’s Gershwin tribute (weirdly brilliant)

Sports:
Walking the dog
Watching the Celtics

Thankless Tasks:
Finally restoring over 2,000 songs lost when my hard drive crashed last year.
~~~

One last distraction: My favorite photo from this summer, of the sky shortly before a big storm swept onto the Cape.

Chaos and Creativity

For years I worked in a classic newspaper newsroom. It was a noisy, cluttered, and often crazy. Peoples’ desks were cheek-by-jowl, sometimes separated by low cubicle walls, but mostly jammed edge to edge in a wide open space. Police scanners, radios and TVs were on; your neighbors were on the phone or debating a fine point with an editor, banging away at a keyboard or cracking jokes, or complaining loudly about who-knew-what. It was a great place to work.

Why? Because amidst all the chaos, two amazing things happened: You learned to focus on your work despite the din and you fed off the creative energy of your colleagues.

I was reminded of this by a visit this week to the offices of Google in Cambridge and the stark contrast that workplace has to my current digs.

Goggle (where my son is doing a summer internship for math and computer whiz kids) promotes a very open office culture. Work spaces for nearly all 350 employees are open-air cubicles, spread out over three or four floors of their building. Even the boss has a cubicle (though he also has exclusive dibs on a small conference room for private meetings). There's stuff everywhere – from hanging mobiles to dog beds, large robots to a life-size cutout of John Kerry (no, those aren’t the same thing!). There’s a geodesic dome the size of a two-person tent – and there's an actual tent and sleeping bag. There are several well-stocked, free-for-all kitchens, a sound-proof workout/rumpus room, a game room (ping pong, foosball, etc.), and lots more.

Googlers gather for meetings around their desks or in "huddle rooms" -- meeting spaces stocked with computers and video conferencing equipment that are often decorated with toys or props around a particular theme. And there are whiteboards everywhere that are covered by undecipherable writing and calculations. Apparently between the Nerf gun duels and flying remote-controlled dirigible contests, a lot of work gets done. Mid day, the boss said, it can be remarkably quiet, in fact.

Where I work now is a bit more traditional – very nice, orderly, and quiet. Almost everyone has a private office. And while most doors remain open, people tend to sit at their desks and do their work in solitude. Collaboration happens among members of 2-3-person teams or at all-staff meetings. Most of these come with prepared agendas.

Don't get me wrong; it's a great group of people, and they tend to work hard and well. But we’re not operating in an environment that's conducive to free-flowing thinking and spontaneous collaboration. In fact, that's one of our main organizational conundrums – how to break out of the silo frame of mind where I do my work and you do yours without regard for how our actions and goals might intersect. Our management team has begun to make progress on getting people to think beyond their old bounds, but it is a challenge.

In the old newsroom, things hummed along on adrenalin, coffee, and other creative juices. Your business was everybody else’s. Everyone worked toward a common goal. It seems that same thing happens at Google. I’m sure it’s not just the no-walls approach (or the toys), but it sure shows what a bit of out-of-the-box (or -office) thinking can produce.

Friends? Indeed!

“Whoa, Dad, you have no friends!” my son informed me last night when he was helping sign me up for a new Facebook group he’s created (Let’s Bring the Space Shuttle to Boston).

Really, it’s not “no” as in “none,” I said in my defense. To me, there’s a whole bunch of folks. It’s just that in contrast to his teen-aged sphere of influencers, or his mother’s expansive social circle, my collection of friendly faces is rather anemic.

But I can live with that. For me, on a personal level at least, having the time and bandwidth to keep track of 10 or 20 or 50 people is plenty. (At work it’s a very different story, where we measure our “friends” by the thousands.) In fact, whether at work or at home, it’s all about why you want to stay in touch and how much effort you want to put in.

For my son, FB is a platform to share comments, crack wise, and otherwise connect with his buddies from school, his ham radio club, assorted astronomers, family members, and others. FB is the flip side of text messaging, with the bonus of links and images.

My wife uses FB for business and pleasure, swapping PR pointers as well as pointed comments with several hundred acquaintances, from the governor to fabled Red Sox players, local media types, and many more. She works at it, and her network works for her. That’s as it should be.

My sister, a rather late adopter of the site, now trolls FB in search of old classmates, workmates, and others from her past. She thinks it’s funny that I don’t much care about these bygoners. I’m OK with that. My brother too has built an impressive network, mostly to promote his documentary and his varied music and media interests. Good for him.

Social media is all about what you need and what you’ve got to give in return. And, of course, who’s on the other end of the line. It’s public platform versus personal touch. So if you’re looking for me on Facebook, I’ll be there when I have something to say to my friends.


P.S.: If you’re reading this, you might notice that it’s been a while since I last checked in. Heck, sorry, I’ve been busy. Since that last item was about summer on the beach, let’s just pretend I wrote it the other day and here I am again today. Welcome back!

August 11, 8 a.m. walk with the dog

Overcast skies, but no rain yet as predicted.
The humidity is thick. It muffles sound and softens the light, like walking through cotton balls.
Creatures scatter in the bushes along our path.
A crow flits from treetop to treetop, wrestling for balance and drunkenly leading the way.

On the beach, the smooth bay surface blends into the gray horizon haze.
The outgoing tide brushes the sandbar. Glad I left my shoes at the stairs.
The water is cool, soothing the spots where no-see-ums are nipping my ankles.
The dog splashes in and out, searching for shells and birds. I could swear he’s grinning.

A boy and his mother walk by. He has an armload of baby clams to bring home.
I break the news that they’re too small to eat and broker a deal.
Toss the clams back and I’ll give you this sand dollar I just found.
The clams buy another day. The boy walks away a little richer.

The sun starts clearing a path through the clouds. It’s going to be a scorcher.
The dog has bored of chasing gulls and nuzzling dead skates and crabs.
I start thinking of the day’s work ahead. And air conditioning.
He’s already focused on a cookie and a nap.

Happy birthday, Turk.

Who better than you?

I’ve had an interesting convergence of conversations lately that have me thinking more about the power of do-it-yourself media. By that I don’t mean ranks from any Dick, Jane, or Sally and slapped up on a blog, but experienced, knowledgeable, accurate news and information gathered, analyzed, and distributed by trained professionals with a larger goal in mind.

Here’s a sampling of the conversations:

~ Anne, who’s just left a big online-media job with a regional news organization that ought to know better, talking about finding a new way to gather local news (and ads) on the Web and get it to people who really want it.

~ Rob, who runs a major performing-arts company, worrying about how his shows will be advertised to sell tickets and where enough people might read the reviews to sell more tickets.

~ Tom, a diehard new-media newsman, experimenting with distributing headlines and commentary via Facebook.

~ Kathy, my wife and publicist extraordinaire, looking at shrinking print and broadcast news holes and targeting new (albeit fragmented) venues to publicize theater events and promotional offers.

~ John, another smart newsie, running a news-aggregating service (“actually the machines do most of the work now,” he says) out of his house while trying to help traditional news orgs figure out the digital thing.

While it shouldn’t come as any surprise, given my work in custom publishing (where journalism meets marketing), what these and many similar conversations point to is the increasing opportunities for smart organizations of all sizes to tell their own stories. Whether they hire a company like mine to do it for them (pitch alert: because we have the people and expertise in place and the critical mass to offer good pricing) or they take advantage of the glut of first-rate writers, editors, and graphics people to build in-house media-marketing teams, companies of all kinds have a chance right now to leapfrog over the struggling mainstream media and talk directly to customers.

A big auto-supply company could provide useful information to car buffs, build a loyal community of DIY grease monkeys, and drive sales to new products. A supermarket chain could offer healthy-cooking ideas or budget-management tips, or open a forum for customers to share favorite recipes. A theater company could build a lively community of arts patrons who want to read and talk about plays and dance and more. A big office-supply company could carve out a niche among small-business owners by providing information and expert advice on the wide range of issues these entrepreneurs are hungry for. It doesn’t even have to be information about paper or inkjet cartridges… in fact, it shouldn’t be that limited. It should also be news on the latest tax loophole, or advice of benefits, how to write a business plan, or how another small biz found success using a product or service from your company. There’s an audience waiting out there for help, and your company can answer the call.

It’s all about building credibility, loyalty, repeat visits, and sales. It’s about carving out your own unique territory that builds and extends your brand. It’s about starting a conversation with your customers that keeps them coming back to you. Yes, there are marketing challenges of the chicken/egg variety (how do you tell your story to people who are not yet your customers), but SEO technologies continue to crack that nut, and there are still plenty of places and ways to ply traditional marketing tactics (despite the death knells in major markets, most daily newspaper are still operating fairly soundly and the mail does get through).

The era of the “corporate journalist” is upon us. Who better to tell your story than you?

Join the revolution

I just read Clay Shirky's essay on the current revolution in the newspaper industry. It really is a brilliant look at the changes happening right before our eyes.

While I still fall in the camp of "people will pay for well-done news" (though my grip on that idea is slipping), I have to admit that everything Shirky says about the broken model of ad-supported news organizations (all that infrastructure!) makes perfect sense. And while I am apprehensive about where it is all headed (like, who's going to pay the journalists? and who's going to watch our backs with big business and government... not to mention analyze tomorrow's Sox game?) I can't really argue with his premise that we are now in an era of great experimentation.

I knew this in some ways back 11 years ago when I switched from the print newsroom to the Web at the Herald. We certainly were creating a new model of news content and delivery--with different options, opportunities, and challenges--both for the newsroom and the bottom line. Since then, I've been watching the drama unfold (unravel?) from the sidelines of other work situations--though the changes in content delivery and accessibility matter every bit as much in custom publishing, and PR/marketing.

But back to Shirky... In the next several years, many things will be tried. Many will fail. Some will succeed in niche ways, and some will work in bigger ways. Something new will come along. Like it or not, change is underway. We might as well embrace that fact and look to the future.

Pay for news online – why not?

As the Rocky Mountain News turned out the lights today, my online-news buddy Karla and I sat down for coffee to hash through the questions of “are newspapers dead” and “what becomes of news as we know it.”

To me, there are open questions (and opportunities) in the hand wringing over newspapers’ demise. For one thing there’s the assumption that newspapers must be saved; and then there’s the lingering popular notion that people won’t pay for the news. I’d argue that a reasonable portion of the public now willingly pays for its daily dose of news, and there’s no reason to expect that to change – it’s just the business model that is changing (delivery, payment methods, content options, etc.), however painfully and publicly. Does it spell the end for more newspapers as we know them? Yes, especially some of the big ones that are leveraged to the hilt and face heavy local competition for readers/viewers and advertising. (As an Advertising Age article pointed out the other day, the vast majority of newspapers in the U.S. are actually doing fine, with annual profits on this or that side of 10%.)

Back in 1998, when I entered the online-news arena to launch BostonHerald.com, one of our earliest debates was whether to charge for the content. We investigated many scenarios to accomplish this, but in the end the publisher decided that since the pioneers of online newspapering (N.Y. Times, boston.com, and others) were giving their stuff away for free, there was no business logic in us to try charging for our version of the news. That decision was debated at papers around the world over the following year or two, and everyone came to the same conclusion. News had to be free and advertising alone would have to pay the bills – for better or, as it turns out, for worse.

Skip ahead to today and you have Google, Yahoo!, and many other online sources swiping and scraping the news from newspapers and TV outlets, posting it for free, and making money off the advertising they sell with it. And you have the Monsters and the craigslists of the online world chomping away at available local advertising. The result? The Rocky Mountain News shuts down because it can’t make as much money as it needs to spend. And the Rocky wasn’t alone as it teetered on the edge of closure.

Flash forward to the near future and you have a scenario where many newspapers across the country will have lost the fight against free news online and no ad support. As they close, the pool of credible news-gathering operations shrinks and an ugly question of the industry’s role as government and business watchdog looms. (That’s a topic for another day, though it has bearing here, for sure.) In this future scenario, the news audience is left mostly with second-rate news outlets and self-appointed voices of varying quality being the primary sources of “information” on everything from politics to sports to the arts. That may amount to a lot of info, but it’s not necessarily good info. (Cue the Wikipedia debate here.)

While greater minds than mine have considered this, here is where I think news will go in the not-too-distant future: One or more online “news stores” will open that sell high-quality news content in whatever format or frequency you want it and in whatever size allotments you like. Just like online supermarkets today, you can shop the shelves on a daily basis or subscribe to a regular bundle in a “my news” model. Love everything about the Red Sox and nothing else? Load up your cart. Want a variety pack – say, the Herald for Sox stats, the Boston Globe for City Hall coverage, the Brookline TAB for hometown info, the Times of London for theater reviews, the Jerusalem Post for updates on the war, etc. – then pick and choose the news you care about. When you’re ready to check out or subscribe, you pay a few cents or more for each item and your news package is delivered when, when, and how you want it.

At the core of this scheme are two key points: someone with legit credentials (and a paycheck) has to generate the news you buy, and the branding and promotion of those content sources will become critical to the equation. Just as you go to the supermarket now and choose between several different brands of butter or frozen pizza based on your taste and quality preferences, so too will you be able to visit the open market of paid online news and make your choices based on the merits of different suppliers. And while you might no longer subscribe to just one newspaper, you will reward your preferred news sources with your micropayments and thus contribute to the health and vibrancy of the market-driven news industry of the 21st century.

Will this system work? How long will it take to get there? I can’t say. Certainly many hurdles need to be overcome, not the least of which is getting a critical mass of news sources to demand payment for their content (watch Newsday for pending developments on this front), and creating the entity or entities that operate the news stores. And then there’s the reality that today’s news audience is technologically fragmented – from print-product holdouts to those with the geekiest gizmos. But these are details to be resolved over time.

So today, while I shed a tear for the Rocky, I see opportunity and exciting possibilities on the horizon. Getting there won’t be easy, or a smooth ride. But get there we will.

Eleuthera Diaries

NO NEWS -- The world’s troubles are playing themselves out in several notable ways here on Eleuthera. The sun may be shining, but there are dark clouds here as well.

The Nassau Guardian daily newspaper has cut off delivery of the daily paper to Eleuthera, and presumably other of the Out Islands. In announcing the change, the paper acknowledged that the cost of ferrying small batches of papers to these not-so-remote outposts had become prohibitive. The news is available online, they said, repeating an all-to-common alternative.

This raises a number of troubling issues. For any of the Out Islands, they are now yet one more step removed from the parliamentary processes that govern them. With limited television and radio news as well, the daily paper was a way for locals to stay on top of the news of their nation that could impact their lives and livelihoods.

On a much more local scale, the demise of the newspaper amounts to a further isolation for one elderly Eleutheran woman who’s “job” it was to deliver the papers to her friends and neighbors. At age 80+, you’d think perhaps she would have easier things to do than drive around with the paper. But it connected her and, by extension, others in the community who relied upon her arrival each day. Certainly the word-of-mouth news system will remain intact, as it has been for generations. But that’s no substitute for the real thing.

What alternative do the locals have for information. Well, radio and TV will provide some of that – though most people get their TV by satellite, which means they don’t necessarily get Nassau TV. As for a local newspaper, there is the Eleutheran, the local monthly newspaper… though it is spotty. Word at The Market grocery story is the February edition has yet to be published and the month is half gone.

As for the Internet – well, yes, the Guardian and the Eleutheran are available online. But online is off limits to many people on this island. And so they rely on word of mouth – or they remain not-necessarily blissfully ignorant.


LOCAL OPPORTUNITY – One bit of silver lining in the dark clouds of the world’s economic meltdown that is touching this island is there is suddenly an opportunity to strike a new balance between natives and foreigners.

While Eleuthera has been here for centuries, it didn’t arrive on the modern map until the 1950s and ‘60s, when American capitalists like Juan Tripp of TWA, Arthur Vining Davis (Alcoa Aluminum), several Boston financiers, and others “discovered” it and planted the flag of development in the pursuit of luxury living. These men built a resort, golf course, and airstrip on the southern end of the island, and then invited their rich friend to come on down. That spurred a bit of a boom that, despite ups and down, has proceeded fairly smoothly for years. Club Med came (and was later washed out by a hurricane). British royals including Lord Mountbatten and Princess Diana parked their beach umbrellas on Windemere Island, the same beach I am overlooking as I write this. Then came Lucy Baines Johnson… and more recently, Mariah Carey. The story is the same in other parts of this island, notably Harbour Island at the far northern tip of Eleuthera, which is like the Hamptons of the Bahamas. Basically, wealth brought the wealthy, and that paved the way for more average types who could afford the million-dollar price of home ownership or the more reasonable rates at various small resorts.

This set up the familiar push/pull of prime real estate that once was the native environment of locals who, on their own, hadn’t the means to do more than eke out a living from the sea or the land, but who were graced with easy access to the natural resources and considered them available for all to share. But as developers bought up oceanside parcels, sliced them into houselots, and put up fences and gates, slowly the locals have been losing their access to the water. Pristine stretches of beach that once were gathering spots for family Sunday picnics or Friday-night fish fries have been taken off the local map. And where once a small cinderblock house at waters edge meant an easy place to put in your skiff to catch some fresh fish or dive for lobster, today that location is impossible to find, and the locals are being forced inland and out of sight.

But as the world credit markets have ground to a halt, so has nearly all development on this island. Talk with a local and the list of developments that are stalled slips easily off their tongue – Cotton Bay, Sky Beach, a Kerry-Heinz condotel here on Windemere (yes, apparently THAT Kerry-Heinz).

That means two things for the locals. Most critical is the obvious loss of income. No new houses means no construction jobs. And what work there is now pays a lot less. Carpenters and masons who, a year ago, earned $150 a day, now have to settle for $90, if they can get work at all.

But the upside here is that land values are falling too and so, for anyone with some money to invest, it is a good time to buy.

How does that help the locals? Beyond the obvious wishful thinking of “when this crisis turns around” there is another opportunity at hand. A local consortium is pulling together investors to purchase land and build affordable, good-quality homes for locals in an entrepreneurial-cum-economic-development model. Because the price of construction will be lower (by 30 or 40 percent), people who have solid jobs and good credit will have a chance to get out of the rental market and make an investment in a more stable future for themselves. The construction jobs will put food on local tables and money into local stores. And, along the way, some of the land being targeted for this project could end up reestablishing locals’ connection and access to the beach.

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT – Shaun Ingraham is a man of many hats and abilities. Member of a long-upstanding Eleutheran family, Shaun is like so many others who live in rural or isolated locales – in a word, he’s industrious. Success for him is measured in a variety of ways. In more or less equal parts, Shaun is a carpenter, construction foreman, property manager, social entrepreneur, civic activist, fundraiser… A natural networker and an actual minister, he is the sort of fellow that inspires others to help out in whatever way they can because they believe in him as much as they believe in his cause(s).

Shaun has his hands on many projects. He is overseeing the comings and goings of tourists at a few rental villas. He is managing the construction of a new vacation home. He is nearing completion on a year-plus community project to fund, build, equip, and man a new fire and rescue station for South Eleuthera, complete with modern fire truck, ambulance, and all the latest disaster equipment, for which he has done fund raising both on and off island. (Through a typical networking connection, he was paired up with New York City firefighters, who have helped provide equipment and training.) He is the linchpin in a program to bring nursing students and faculty from his alma mater, Emery University, to the island to run medical clinics and to provide on-site certification training for local nurses so they don’t have to leave the island to advance their careers. He is spearheading the aforementioned low-cost home building project. And when duty calls, he does disaster relief work in several third-world countries through the World Council of Churches and Habitat for Humanity and continues to work on fund raising activities for these efforts.

He’s a pretty well-rounded guy, who in conversation can switch from his appreciation for smart TV shows like Boston Legal and Big Love, his appreciation for Facebook, to his insights on his current reading matter – Team of Rivals, the book about Lincoln’s cabinet choices that Barack Obama credits with part of his political strategy. He can go from amusing exchanges about the weather (usually the benefits of his versus yours) to savvy views on the global business and cultural impact of Diageo, the international beverage conglomerate, or Chinese labor policies. He is a unique combination of local and worldly – his love for his home island is genuine, he views of it far beyond parochial, his horizon somewhat infinite.

BEACH READING – Having left John Adams at home (too heavy to lug on the plane) and having ripped through a Stone Barrington detective novel, I’ve picked up Herman Wouk’s classic Don’t Stop the Carnival for a second read. It’s an entertaining story, and in these uncertain times, gives one a good reason to think about career and life trajectories. There could be worse things than packing up, moving to a tropical island, and running a beach hotel and bar…

New year... new beginnings

I realize it has been a long time since I checked in here. Not that I haven’t wanted to… just have been mighty distracted. But so much for excuses… here are a few random thoughts rattling around in my mind:

Obama’s debut – Like the rest of the liberal-media-elite world, I was captivated by the quiet drama of Inauguration Day—the pomp, the speeches, the benedictions, the hats… President Obama hit the right tone in his address and demeanor. Mrs. O stood by her man, looked great (until about midnight, when she started to wilt), and set a new standard of class and cool for Washington and the nation. The children were cute. The crowds we awe inspiring. And yes, it was good to see George W ride off into the sunset.

Caroline, uh-oh – I’m glad Caroline Kennedy withdrew from the N.Y. Senate contest. She was getting chewed up in the media. It became clear she isn’t fit—or doesn’t have the right team behind her—to get into the rough-and-tumble of politics. Besides, I stick with my earlier thoughts on her: she’s much better suited to play the part of a guardian angel, swooping in to shine a spotlight on and perhaps disperse some money to worthy causes. The world remains her stage—as long as she doesn’t retreat from the edge of public exposure she has just gained.

The economy, stupid – All I can say is, god help us. Every day it’s another gut-grabbing bit of grim news. I know in my heart that it will subside and turn around someday. But man, it’s tough sledding on the way down the hill.

Spygate 2009 – The news that the NSA was listening in on all of us Americans all the time is no surprise… and that’s an absolutely horrible thing to think on many many levels. Meanwhile, I wonder if I said or wrote anything that got me on a list somewhere…

Cold shoulder – I am officially sick and tired of the weather here in Boston. Sure, it’s worse further north. But I have the good sense not to live in the arctic (which apparently now starts around Minneapolis). I am looking forward to February break in the Bahamas. And I’m having a harder and harder time convincing myself that telecommuting from the tropics—or opening a beach-bum business somewhere south of here—is not an idea whose time has come.

The Christmas Letter

Maybe it’s the crowd I run with. Maybe it’s a sign of our times – whether economic or digital. But I miss the tradition of the Christmas Letter.

When I was a boy, one of the favored holiday treats – not quite up there with my mother’s Vanilla Kipferln cookies or my Grossmama’s precious packages of Julius Meinl chocolate wafers from Vienna , but surely on a par with the Advent wreath and singing carols by the piano – were the holiday cards that arrived with a family letter. These missives from people my parents knew from The War or from my dad’s Harvard days, but we kids only knew through their annual dispatches, were a window into another world, one of privilege, access, and refinement – or at least (even to our impressionable young minds) to pretenses thereof.

Imagine, if you will, the voice and manner of Thurston B. Howell III (from TV’s Gilligan’s Island) recounting his clan’s far-flung and glamorous exploits from the year past, recited in a warm yet holier-than-thou tone: “Susie polished her tennis game this summer, making it to the top of the Juniors Ladder at the club. Stanford will be lucky to have her next fall!” “Tommy Jr. spent his sophomore semester abroad at Colgate’s little outpost in Kitzbuhl, brushing up on his Deutsch (and his slalom skills!). Mitzie and I will be joining him there after the holidays for a week on the slopes.” “Caroline is a shoe-in for valedictorian this year at Lawrence – nothing but straight A’s for our little scholar!” “We made the most of the summer on the Vineyard… sailing nearly every day with our friends Willard and Diana, and toasting the sunsets from our verandah, martini in hand.” “The only thing better was our two weeks in Florence in October – my golly, the art, the architecture, the opera… divine!”

These weren’t the only such letters that arrived, naturally. Other old friends kept tabs with notes and photos of their trips, their children’s successes, their personal bests. And usually with a little less one-uppitiness. (In fact, my mother received just such a letter the other day, from a cousin who recounted in six pages of fine detail his 5-month retirement trip by ship from the Arctic to Antarctica. "Myamar is so much better than Thailand," he says. So apparently, the artform is not altogether dead.)

Touching base

I was reminded of these annual looks back as we spent part of the past two nights hurriedly scribbling cards and sticking on stamps to get our holiday wishes in the mail before the 24th. I was thinking about was how the form has changed, even if the desire to share has not. Today, we’re ever-more instant in our personal reportage. Ace your golf game – text-message your buddy to rub it in. Get your homework done in a flash – IM a friend to check in. Have photos of the big fish that didn’t get away – post ‘em on flickr. Have an idea? Blog it. All of the above… put it on Facebook.

It’s not that we’re communicating less. It’s just that our personal news comes and goes in bits and sound bites now. We share it quickly, like a hot potato, as if by letting the moment simmer it will lose value. That we might pause and reflect on our comings and going is, like, too much effort, too much looking back and not enough “what’s next?”.

So, I miss the annual ritual of reflection that came in those cards. I regret that we too did nothing more than “touch base” this year as we whirled through the address book to get cards in the mail. If anyone reads this blog and remembers – remind me next year to put it in a letter.

The next Kennedy

The news that Caroline Kennedy might enter the political arena as the next Senator from New York, replacing Hilary Clinton, has me feeling mixed emotions.

Ever since she chose to steer clear of direct public exposure—choosing to work on the sidelines, but in enough public view to maintain her visibility and clout—I have been among the ranks who are inspired by her example, her decision not to get down in the trenches, her … well … unique separateness. It has been, I think, a source of her strength as well as a big part of her continuing mystique. She’s not a dilettante. She chooses her battles, and wages them quietly but effectively, whether for the New York education causes or as head of Barack Obama’s vice-president search committee. And despite the extraordinary push/pull that must always be there in the Kennedy family to assume one’s place in public life, she has kept her distance and led a quieter life.

Now, whether because of Ted K being on the wane or because of the inspiration of Obama, or maybe because her kids are grown and she can more freely devote herself to life in Washington, Caroline Kennedy seems ready to step up to the plate.

Don’t get me wrong. I have always thought of her as the most capable of the extended collection of Kennedy and Shriver kids. I don’t know her, and have absolutely nothing but her public persona to go on, but I just feel that she stands head and shoulders above the rest of her family’s generation.

But do I want to see her go into public office… to run for public office… and all that entails? I just don’t know… Yes, I would like to see her rise up and carry on the work and champion the causes that her uncle is beginning to relinquish. There is no one else who could do that (conversely, I shudder at the speculation that Ted is positioning wife Vicki as heir apparent for his Massachusetts seat). Our the country could be a better place for having Caroline Kennedy on the Senate floor. In fact, much of the world would cheer her arrival in our legislature and as a presence on the world stage. Her stature is simply that great.

Yet, I wonder if she could do just as much good off the campaign trail—step up her public prominence, perhaps, maybe assume a leadership role on some national or global foundation. Maybe I just have trouble dispelling the image of the little girl playing under the desk, who grew into the graceful person she seems today. She’s a quiet force right now. Does she really need to join the fray of public politics?

Lost in space

The past week’s events in Mumbai, India, in particular the way ordinary bystanders participated as “citizen journalists” in reporting the terror-attack events as they unfolded via online services such as Twitter and Flickr, got me thinking about how I use Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools, and how I am beginning to feel a bit pixilated in my online activity.

First a small step back… I have been messing around with Facebook over the past few weeks. It started as an experiment in child monitor (mine, not yours!) but has quickly, and remarkably easily, blossomed into a daily activity almost as necessary as checking my e-mail. And therein lies the quandary. Is Facebook the straw that could break this cyber-camel’s back?

Assuming I remember them all, I have cyber selves and accounts at:

• Hotmail – my day-to-day e-mail account.
• Gmail – for my personal-business e-mailing.
• CCICrosby.com – where I handle e-mail for my job.
• Facebook – At my new best time-waster (to quote a friend), I keep tabs on friends, colleagues, and other loose connections. I’ve posted some photos. I also play word puzzle games that I find a bit annoying, but my wife got me into it. And I keep track of several blogs that I like to read.
• delicious – I use this site regularly to keep track of all the websites and blogs I need at my fingertips for work or personal interests.
• Twitter – I do have a Twitter account, though I don’t use it much. A work colleague uses Twitter often to troll for information on articles we’re planning. I just haven’t gotten into the habit. Certainly the Mumbai reporting opened my eyes to new possibilities.
• LinkedIn – Go here to see or join my professional connections and network. I’m still getting the hang of all you can do with LinkedIn from a business standpoint, and I don’t have as cool connections as my wife (she’s linked to the governor, at least one Red Sox ace, and the host of a certain national TV dance show), but I see the potential.
• weber-wise – this blog… thank you for reading.
• Amazon wish list – This is my master file of all music, movies, and books that I hope to get at some point, or simply things that I want to remember for some reason. By the way, Christmas is just around the corner…
• iTunes shopping cart – a companion to my Amazon list. Here is where I keep track of single tunes that I want to add to my collection someday. This was a hard adjustment to make at first, since I consider myself an album kind-of guy. But at 99 cents apiece, I can adjust. I often shuffle music ideas back and forth between iTunes and Amazon as my whims and priorities change.
• Peapod – I love this service, which lets me grocery shop online and have someone else lug in the heavy bags. And the site’s database keeps track of everything I’ve ever ordered, so I can do all my shopping in a few quick clicks.
• MySpace – Mostly dormant at this time (you’ll see, I have basically no friends here). I set it up last year, partly as a cyber exercise and partly to keep tabs on my son, his friends, and my brother.
• Second Life – OK, I’m really adrift here. I created a character this summer (named Spyder Wirefly… cool, eh!?) but I find it darned difficult to do anything. I had a heck of a time modifying my avatar’s appearance; I can barely figure out how to get to the site and move around; and communicating with others…? Maybe I’d be better off living my second life as a mute! The notion of earning Linden dollars, buying or selling stuff, conducting business, running a presidential campaign, or any of the other interesting options you hear about on Second Life… well, let’s just say I’m still learning to do that in my first life.

Seeing it all laid out here, the list is pretty awesome. I remember only five years ago being impressed that I was part of an active listserv. But managing it all demands time and patience, as well as a certain degree of “here I am” ego. It’s no wonder I don’t write in this blog more frequently, or that several of my sites are less that robust. I’m really actually fairly busy at work, thank you, and at home I’ve only got so many hours to give over to my cyber life. I know it will sort itself out and some of these services will fall into disuse. But for now, all I can say is, thank god for bookmarks.

Finally, a good use for the Internet

OK, so that’s a bit extreme. But after spending way too much time online with Facebook lately, I’ve found balance in my life.

First, about this Facebook thing… I admit to being a latecomer to the party. But judging by various associates, friends, and friend of friends who’ve also joined recently, there’s still a lot of room for growth in this puppy. As one colleague said to me, “welcome to the new biggest time waster in your life,” and by golly she was right.

The site just sucks you in with all kinds of mind candy – games to play, events to join in, photos to post and share and comment on, all manner of gizmos to show which movie star you see yourself as, gifts to “send,” drinks to pass around (that one remains a mystery to me), and more. Starting with the “Bill is _ _ _” status report at the top of the page, the site is demonically designed to make you “need” to come back often and update yourself and check on your many friends. That some friends report “other people” who update their status constantly throughout the day makes you wonder if those folks have an offline life. (It also makes me wonder how my friends know this detail about their Facebook friends’ obsessiveness.) I mean, really, is the world a better place for our knowing that “Susie is watching Johnny play in the back yard” (and which is she watching more closely – Johnny or Facebook?)

Don’t get me wrong. It’s been fun to connect casually with a few folks who I’d otherwise be missing. It’s like popping back into lives that had drifted apart. Within limits, that’s a good thing, and just might lead to interesting possibilities down the road.

In the meantime, however, Bill is … not so sure Facebook is a good thing.

Craigslist, on the other hand, is a godsend. For months, I have been grumbling about the clutter in our house. Things certainly have piled up over the years. Toys get outgrown, and boxed, and stored and… dusty. Furniture from a previous generation of dwelling are a bit too nice to be discarded, but don’t fit in the current abode or in our future plans. Dishes. Lamps. Videos. Albums. Rugs. More dishes. Our attic holds a vast store of stuff that fits into the “one man’s trash…” category.

Now that we’ve arrived at the “enough is enough” stage, craigslist is my exit strategy.

I posted several pieces of furniture and some unused toys on craigslist yesterday afternoon as a first foray into cybersales – and much to my joy, I got three bites within a few hours. That’s progress. Because believe me, there’s more where that came from.

If all goes well, I now have a new part-time job. Just like the folks I remember from Downeast Maine who have permanent yard sales in their garages (stop by anytime), if you need to find me, just know that “Bill is… rummaging in the attic.”

Harsh words

I’ve been wrestling this week with mixed feelings about boys, bullies, and the messy rites of growing up.

At my son’s school… well, actually, in my son’s physical and virtual social networks this week, a major rift happened when four boys went onto Facebook and posted a photo of all the 7th and 8th graders from a school outing and then tagged each student’s and teacher’s face with rude, racist, slanderous, malicious comments. They targeted appearance, socioeconomic status, weight, ethnicity, sexual orientation, heritage, intelligence, lack of coolness – everything bad you can think of, if you put yourself in a smartass 13-year-old frame of mind.

The thing blew up on Monday at school. Several girls confronted the boys in the lunchroom. Some kids went to the principal. Everybody talked about it. Everybody knew.

By Tuesday morning, two boys were suspended (I’ll call them Jerk 1 and Jerk 2) for a day, the other two (Jerks 3 and 4) spoke with the principal. Jerk 1 spent part of his day at home (presumably under the watchful eye of a parent?) texting Jerk 3 at school (in blatant violation of the no-cell phones policy) about how he was grounded for a month and sharing their indignation with the lunch table gang about how “people can’t take a joke” and the like. Jerk 4 somehow managed to talk his way out of trouble. A letter came home with all kids that afternoon, acknowledging the incident and repeating the no-bullying policy in bland legalese.

On Wednesday, the principal called an assembly of the 7th and 8th graders, during which Jerks 1 and 2 were made to give public apologies (consensus is that the boys were marginally contrite) and did some public squirming (Jerk 1 took blame for writing bad things about his classmates but baldly claimed no knowledge of who wrote the bad things about teachers, even though his classmates in the audience “all” knew Jerk 3 did that bit). Then the town safety officer spoke about Internet civility, and gave the students a chance to speak and to vent. During this portion, amazingly, Jerk 3 stood up and tried to argue that “it wasn’t that bad – it was meant to be funny.” The audience didn’t much buy that line. After the assembly, Jerk 1 handed out individual, hand-written apologies to the kids he dissed online. Despite the relatively identical nature of his message to each kid, that helped some. He also asked several kids “can we be friends,” since he’s under orders to make new friends as part of his rehabilitation. (Even though he was the ringleader of this debacle, his friends are being portrayed as the proverbial bad influence.)

Anyhow, the week ended today with confirmation that Jerk 1 is a serial offender, Yesterday during gym class he was overheard repeating out loud the same insulting remarks he made online about one of his female victim’s appearance. The girl’s mother marched into the main office this morning packing that piece of info. Jerk 1 clearly has some more lessons coming on the subject of respect…

So, is this “boys being boys” or something more? Certainly, kids have been obnoxious toward each other since Neanderthal days. Name-calling is nothing new – and the more hot-button bad words you can string together the better, right? General stupidity isn’t exactly a rare human condition either. Nor is it a surprise that teens who are left under-supervised will tend to get into trouble. In education, they term such kids “at-risk,” and usually school officials can see these problem children coming a mile away. At worst, they’ll see abusive behavior surface on the playground or “out back after school.”

But in the new world of online interaction, the school doesn’t necessarily see all that goes on. Nor does it necessarily have authority to punish or arbitrate offenses. Parents are likely fairly out of the loop. In cases of cyberbullying, it happens in perhaps the worst combination of ways – acts of abuse taking place within a relatively closed network of individuals who are ill-equipped to respond appropriately. In English, that means kids are online slamming each other without adult intervention and the victims are either intimidated or embarrassed into not responding and left to deal with the hurt or humiliation on their own.

Thank heavens, then, that this week’s particular act of mayhem hit a large group all at once. Almost no one was spared, which helped the victims deal collectively with the pain and anger. That doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to take for the weigh-conscious girl who was called fat and ugly, or the academically challenged African American boy who was labeled a dumb black blob, or the Hispanic girl who was labeled an immigrant whore. Nor for the so-called “Goth wannabe,” the “rapist,” or the “flat-chested” girls. Labels have a way of sticking, even among the best of friends. The stigma can’t so easily be erased.

There is no easy solution. Just as we all did during our own uneasy youths, these kids too will process and (one hopes) shed this unfortunate incident. Out of misery can come growth for all involved. That doesn’t make it any simpler to help navigate or monitor as parents or educators. It just means there’s one more playground we all have to watch.

Divided we fall?

I had an early-morning daydream yesterday while showering (my best place for free-form thinking) in which the McCain-Palin ticket did in fact win the election. But within days of taking office, John McCain died suddenly and suspiciously (in one version of this reverie, he was shot; in another, someone slipped a mickey into his daily meds). In either case, Sarah Palin was immediately elevated to the presidency amid all of the angst of recent weeks and compounded by the aftermath of an assassination.

These thoughts drifted through my mind after reading Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert’s article “Meet Sarah Palin's radical right-wing pals” on Salon.com. This fairly sobering piece of investigative journalism sketches a portrait of an ambitious young local politician who allowed—and seemingly still allows—members of the Alaska Independence Party to fill her head with gun-totin’, secessionist, Christian ultra-right ideas as she’s marched her way from local to statewide to national office. While her husband was a card-carrying member of the AIP until just recently switching to Independent (after all, an obvious AIP affiliation could hinder her political ascension), Palin allegedly has repeatedly used her role as mayor and governor to front for any number of the group’s questionable goals. No surprise, Extremist Number One “Bo” Gritz surfaces in the piece, claiming her as a devotee of his us-versus-U.S. movement. And the neo-Nazis and skinheads aren’t far behind.

The lengthy piece is worth a read, so I’ll say no more about it. But it raised another concern for me. And that has to do with where we Americans get our information and what it means when we pick one media source over another.

For me, at least, unlike any political campaign in the past, the media has squared itself off into distinct pockets of perspective. Certainly, in our nation and many others, there have always been the “liberal media,” the “right wing press,” and every shade in between. It’s been a part of the fabric of mainstream media in much of Europe and in most Latin countries for decades, but it seems to have blossomed most obviously in this country in the last decade. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to identify a truly independent, right-down-the-middle media outlet.

Given my own leanings toward liberal causes, and thus toward Obama, I find myself tuning in mostly to the media Sarah Palin loves to hate. Couple that with a growing desire for a slightly escapist take on all the grim economic headlines of late, we’ve gravitated toward MSNBC for the nightly newsertainment of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

(For anyone who hasn’t seen it or read the text, you ought to watch Olbermann's Special Comment from Oct. 12, in which he goes full-bore against McCain and Palin’s unabashed inciting of supporters to threaten the safety of Barack Obama. It’s a remarkable piece of anger and honest outrage.)

So it struck me the other night, after watching the final McCain-Obama debate and sliding first into one mainstream network’s straight-laced post-event analysis that I wanted—no, needed—to hear Olbermann and company’s more pithy (and mostly anti-McCain) take on the proceedings. I’d watched the debate, and had my own opinion of how the two men fared. There wasn’t much I missed of their good points and bad calls. So an hour’s worth of “yeah, right on!” railing before bed seemed appropriate.

Somewhere along the way, however, I found myself wondering what the right-leaning media was saying about who won or lost or lobbed the best zingers. Fox News and their ilk too have their punchy pundits and their outraged commentators. And they were no doubt preaching to their own choirs and fanning the flames of diehard Republicanism. So what were they saying—and to whom?

In all the sniping and yelling, I am left wondering what wounds this election will leave in its wake. We are a country more divided than at any other time in my life—divided between left, right, and middle; between haves and a growing number of have-nots; between hope and anger and despair—with a media that, for better or worse, encourages the divide. You hear Obama and McCain talking about “reaching across the aisle” to achieve consensus, but it rings as overly idealistic, or pandering, or plain old politics-as-usual, to think that they, or the public, can or will so easily “get along” once the votes are counted. When you have guys with guns in their closets who are ready to use them against fellow citizens (and candidates who will watch their backs)… when you have politicians who will blatantly lie to get ahead, who cynically know their supporters are listening to the cues and winks but not the words coming out of their mouths… when “fear itself” is what we have to fear these days and loathing is waiting in the wings… it’s hard to be very optimistic. I do look forward to a brighter day as promised by the Obama campaign. But today, it feels like behind every silver lining there’s a dark cloud.

[End note: Despite the gloomy prospects, you still gotta laugh. So for today’s bit of levity, click on this Palin-as-prez spoof. Remember… it’s a joke!]

Old home week

Lately I’ve been mulling the notion of home and one’s sense of place …

As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, our historic neighborhood association is hosting a performance this weekend by internationally known storyteller Jay O’Callahan, who grew up in our neighborhood and has based a number of his most popular stories on his escapades and observations of growing up here in the 1940s to early ‘60s.

Meanwhile, our family is preparing for a trip to my hometown to visit my mother, who herself is at this moment down in South Carolina visiting my sister and her partner, who moved from St. Thomas to horse country this past spring. It’s been ages since I was in Erie last; the visits are way too infrequent for my mother’s liking, though for me the place changes so little from one trip to the next that it is so fixed in my mind that it is easily visited in memories.

And… my wife and I are going through our own mental exercise of considering how long to stay in our current home versus packing up and downsizing our family unit to smaller, more manageable digs. (There’s nothing like a coming winter and an economic calamity to get you thinking about having someone else shovel the sidewalk—or better still, sweep up the sand and palm leaves!).

And … at work we’ve been spending a lot of time researching 50+/senior-lifestyle subject matter as grist for possible publications and website work. The world of 50+ is a land of man opportunities right now… as a business market, as a social landscape, as a destination that is approaching fast.

Anyhow, in our neighborhood—known as Pill Hill for the many doctors who settled here at the turn of the 19th century and filled with grand Victorians and other many-roomed manses (the O’Callahan’s house has 35!)—homes rarely change hands. Until just the past few years, almost no one left their house standing up, as they say—that was the case for our home, and with any number of others around us. Certainly the burgeoning options for senior citizens (assisted living, continuum communities, and the like) is starting to cause a shift, but even then, many of the most recent expatriates have stuck pretty close to home turf as they have downsized to condos and apartments on the fringes of our neighborhood. As a result, they maintain their friendships with former neighbors nearly as much as if they still lived around the corner.

As we prepared for tomorrow night’s performance, and a reception afterwards at the former O’Callahan house, the old-timers have surfaced in great numbers and will be driving in from across town, down on the South Shore, and other parts. I know of at least one native who is actually flying “home” from California for the event! Along the way, I’ve heard interesting stories from some of them as I’ve taken their ticket orders—this one grew up next door to the O’Callahans and remembers watching the children playing in the yard (a yard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, no less!); another one bought the house from the O’Callahans and raised her children there over 10 years, surviving a major fire and lord knows what else; still another was a cohort of Jay’s and factors into a few of his storied exploits; still one other revealed that she is guardian of a fabled cookie recipe of a long-passed O’Callahan neighbor (also central to a story or two) and asked if our caterer would object if she baked a batch for the occasion.

Anyhow, I think you get the drift… it’s a neighborhood in the truest sense. It has history. It has a back-story. It has its characters, its clashes, its gossips, its rivalries, its rules and formalities (heck, at the annual Christmas party, everyone wears nametags, even though most of them have known each other for 40 years). It has secrets that some of us newcomers will never live to know.

Except for the well-to-do-Bostonian part, it reminds me of the community in Downeast Maine where my wife and I owned a house for a number of years. There they refer to you as “from away” if you aren’t a second or (better) third or fourth generation local. You could be accepted—to a cautious degree—by evidence of your hard labors on your property and your willingness to engage in the social mix (mostly man-to-man talk, and woman-to-woman). But basically you would forever be “from away.”

All this is rattling around in my head because I recognize myself as one of those tail-end baby boomers who is somehow, somewhat rootless. It wouldn’t have done to stay in my hometown after high school—the options were just too limited, then and today. And Cleveland didn’t quite cut it when I finished college. Though I’ve lived in Boston for more than 35 year, I’m not sure I feel “from here” either. Maybe it comes from reading too many travel magazines and watching too many episodes of “House Hunters” and “Bizarre Foods.” I can see myself, our family, living someplace else. And in these anxiety-fueled days of uncertain finances and unstable employment (not to mention bio/nuclear terror, global warming, pesky Russians, killer Koreans, irrational Iranians, mooses, and other things that keep Sarah Palin up at night), I find myself thinking about starting over in somewhere that’s cheaper, warmer, simpler, and offers a bit more peace-of-mind. (Call now if you know where that is…operators are standing by! And no, Margaritaville doesn’t count.)

Then I think of a gathering like what will happen tomorrow night—200 friends and neighbors coming together to celebrate their unique sense of community and collective history—and I wonder what I would miss, what our son will have traded off when he looks back on now from his future self, by picking up and moving on.

(Spooky end note – I just noticed that the streaming radio station—reallymusicradio.com—I’ve been listening to has been playing a succession of “movin’ on” songs. The last one had a refrain that caught my ear: “time to leave .. it’s hard to care.” Ooooooeeeeee! Time to sign off!)

God, family, and Sarah Palin

What to make of Sarah Palin…? Last night’s performance at the RNC was pretty incredible for the amount of “change” she represents for the Grand Old Party. Yes (she can!), she proved that women can make it (almost) to the top while juggling family and moose-hunting season – something other women (Democrats and Republicans) have already done, certainly, but now it’s no longer a “sacrifice” or a “trade-off” (or worse, just plain wrong). Now it’s a badge of honor. Bring it on!

It’s also now apparently OK to have a messed-up family, with a DUI husband who burns precious fossil fuels in pursuit of long-distance snowmobile championships, and a daughter who managed to miss mom’s messages about abstinence, underage drinking, and lord knows what else, and get herself pregnant with self-professed “redneck” who’s known around town as “sex on skates” and who professed on his now blocked MySpace page to not want kids. I suppose when Levi hits Bristol in a drunken rage or leaves her after changing one too many diapers, Palin can add “mother of an underage single mom” to her resume too. It’s all good, eh?

Then there’s Palin’s outspoken affirmation that we’re on a mission from God in our fight in Iraq – just as we are, apparently, in our pursuit of more oil in Alaska. Makes you wonder about the God who’s inspiring the Muslims warriors. Whose guy is right? And then what?

And then there’s Palin’s savvy media manipulation, in one breath (another example of superwomanly multitasking?) scolding and warning the evil media to leave her family matters private, then proceeding (next breath) to introduce dad and the kids one by one to the TV camera so they could smile sheepishly and wave, then pass baby Tigger, or Trigger, from one to the next. (Did you catch the littlest girl licking his hair like a cat…cute, but icky!) Not to project too far into the future, or to ill effect, but what happens if Palin’s oldest son, Trick, or is it Truck?, goes off to war, gets wounded or (God forbid, since he is OUR God) killed… will that elevate Palin to American Hero status for her “ultimate sacrifice”? Plays like a Lifetime movie, doesn’t it?

You have to hand it to John McCain. While some news reports (in the evil media, of course) are saying he picked an obscure governor from a remote state to thumb his nose at the Republican Guard, I mean party leadership, for trying to force some inside-the-beltway VP choices on him, let’s give him a credit for selecting a running mate who hits nearly every hot-button issue (well, let’s not talk about that “experience” thing, OK?) – working class, mothers, babies, disabled people, oil, religion, military, government spending, corruption, foreign relations (remember, Alaska IS right next to Russia, so who really knows them better?), women, children, sex, abortion, gun control, small-town values, the evil media … gosh, the list is endless. What a brilliant choice! OK, fine, so he didn’t learn about the pregnant-daughter thing until after he’d picked Palin because she exercised her right to choose not mention it during the three-hour, 40-page job application process. Hey, some things work out for the best, right? Just proves what a terrific decision-maker, political strategist, and free-thinker he is… and with God on his side too. How can he lose?

Olympic perks

Holding somewhat true to their personae from the Games, it's amusing to note the perks coming the way of various gold-medal winners.

Misty May, fresh off her appearance with teammate Kerri Walsh on last night's Letterman show, will be trading her beach bikini for a tutu (or whatever) on the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars . Is she up to the Olympian standards set by Kristi Yamaguchi and Apollo Ono? We'll see.

Meanwhile, freckle-faced gymnast Shawn Johnson will lead the "Pledge of Allegiance" tonight for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama at his mega-rally in Mile High Stadium. Johnson then heads off on a 40-city gym-stars tour, where she'll be blogging from the road and selling cute baubles in her online store.

Make hay while the sun shines, ladies.

I stand corrected

Alright, I stand corrected... Nastia Liukin has a busier and brighter future than I predicted in yesterday's post. According to the Associated Press, she plans on competing for the world gymnastics title in London next year. She's also in line for a US Weekly cover shoot, another magazine shoot with tennis ace Maria Sharapova, and possible TV show appearances and a modeling career. OK, so I was a little hasty... good for her!

Olympics observations

I understand that NBC is somewhat beholden to the schedule of events in Beijing, but after a week and a half of Olympics on our household’s schedule, it would seem as if the only events taking place in China are swimming, gymnastics, women’s beach volleyball, and boxing. Why? Because except for over the weekend, our only time to watch is during evening hours, and the network is covering the same set of events nearly every night. Yes, they’ve successfully built up the drama of Michael Phelps’ medal chase, and Shawn & Nastia vs. the Chinese Children, but it’s come at the expense of many other sports and other worth athletes getting their shot at primetime.

Sure, I’ve gotten to see Michael Phelps win all eight of his medals (it seems like even more, given all the replays), but, really, swimming isn’t THAT interesting.

Women’s volleyball has earned my respect, however. Looking way past the clothing questions (why is it that men can compete in t-shirts and shorts but women need bikinis?), it really is a fast and difficult sport. (For the most in-your-face example of why bikinis and beach volleyball are a match made in guy heaven, see the Cracking the Code photo gallery at NBC.com. No ifs, ands, or butts about it!)

Most impressive events that I’ve seen – badminton, women’s trampoline, steeplechase in the pouring rain, team handball.

What I have yet to catch a glimpse of – the Cuban baseball team, U.S. men’s basketball, table tennis, archery.

What I don’t need to see more of – cycling marathon, marathon running, boxing… oh, and swimming.

An equity question: The NBC anchors so blatantly love U.S. gymnast Shawn Johnson, at the expense of Nastia Liukin, that it borders on rudeness and vaguely nationalistic. (The live commentators/analysts are better – they call the action as they see it.) A few nights ago, when both women were being interviewed by Bob Costas after the all-around finals, he did everything but elbow Liukin out of the way to lob flattering questions to Johnson – even though Liukin had won more and higher medals. And the camera operators are just as bad, doing frequent, adoring close-ups of All-American-pixie Johnson with her button nose and freckles.

By contrast, Liukin is so focused and steely – so stereotypically Russian – most of the time that she’s not instantly loveable. She also is a victim of bad political timing, now that the Putin Party is starting a new Cold War in Europe. Despite her own electric (though fleeting) smile and the fact that she’s won more big medals than her teammate, Nastia isn’t Apple Pie American enough to grab the spotlight away from Sweetheart Shawn.

You can already write the next chapter for both women – Liukin will follow in mom and dad’s footsteps, fading into obscurity (outside the elite gymnastics world) to become a coach to future athletes, while Johnson will get the product endorsements, the “Tonight Show” appearance, the profile on “Nightline,” the Gym Stars world tour…

Meanwhile, Michael Phelps’ face, geeky ears and all, already adorns ads for Omega watches, Visa, Speedo, and soon, Pizza Hut (huh?). I do like the fact that he’s endorsing Frosted Flakes instead of Wheaties. There’s, um, nothing like a hefty dose of sugar to help you fly through the water, I guess.

So, does that leave room for Misty May on the Wheaties box? Probably not in a bikini…