Andrew said it best:
You look at this man, his obvious intelligence, his benevolence, his values, and not least of all, his charisma, and you just know he’s a born leader. He’s going to be the man that changes the way the world looks at America, and hopefully the way America looks at the rest of the world.
Filed by Julien at 2:34 pm under political
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Filed by Julien at 11:09 pm under political
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We hear about slavery a lot in an abstract form, but I’ve never seen anything like this before– it’s from the Quebec Gazette, from the year 1767.
Filed by Julien at 11:38 am under political
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If you weren’t watching Digg tonight, you missed history being made.
For the first time in a long while, I gained a massive amount of respect for Digg users. Here’s why. Or, check out the screenshot from last night. Every single story with the HD-DVD key.
Update:This commenter says it best: “And to think, this was all caused by trying to keep these numbers hidden.“Update (2): As Bob said in the comments, only time will tell what people will think of what happened. The site has returned to normal now after a note that Kevin Rose wrote, saying he would be willing to make the site go down in flames for his users. And so, go figure, the users have now returned to talking about OS X, atheism, and burying people.
Filed by Julien at 10:31 pm under political
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Today is Bum Rush the Charts. With your help, we will push one independent, podsafe track to #1 on the iTunes charts, and help send one lucky kid to college.
How can you help? Go here and follow the instructions. Half the proceeds from this will be going to a scholarship fund. And if you already own the song, gift it to a friend as well! You’ll be making your vote count twice.
Thanks for your help!
Filed by Julien at 10:59 am under political, podcasting
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… but that’s not what I want to talk about. Instead, take a look at what shows up first in Google for “Youtube John Edwards”:
Google is the first place I went when I wanted news of the event (after finding out from Dembot and Rocketboom). This is the politics of influence on the web.
Filed by Julien at 10:47 am under political
5 Comments
Considering the following news about Parc Avenue, I am making 25 “du Parc” stickers available to anyone that gives me their address. I will pay shipping and cost of printing for any sticker requests that are sent to me. Put your address in the comments, and they’re yours. Yes, for real.
La décision a été prise. La rue sera renommée avenue Robert Bourassa. J’offre donc 25 collants “du Parc”à n’importe qui qui m’envoie leur adresse. Je défrayerai le coût pour les imprimer et les envoyer. Laissez votre adresse dans les commentaires ci-dessous, et je vous les envoie. Oui, vraiment.
Filed by Julien at 1:11 am under political
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ATSA, a week-long festival that aims to represent the interest of the refugee, homeless, and disenfranchised, is now over. The Homeless Nation crew and I gathered our gear together and will be back at the office as of tomorrow morning. It’s been an intense week.
Never before have I come into such close contact with so many people that are in such drastic contrast to my way of life, all at once. It’s shocking how much you can learn about people in general by watching their rejected, marginalized groups.
When I got involved in this project, I really had no idea what it was I was involved with. Seeing all these people gather together, their intensity, hope, and sometimes anger, is eye-opening. I’m doing my best to assimilate what I’ve seen into my worldview, but it’s not easy.
Of course, there’s also the matter of one of my coworkers getting arrested last night on some pretty serious charges (on my day off, of all things). That’s something I’ll blog when I have some more information - right now, we’re really not sure what will happen. Later guys.
Filed by Julien at 9:49 pm under political
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Homeless Nation is a non-profit organization that focuses on giving a voice to homeless people across the country. As of last Monday, I work for them. Here’s why.
First, from the site:
There are tens of thousands of homeless people in Canada, with no address, no vote, nameless and faceless, and yet there is almost no documentation (statistical or personal) made by them or about them as a community or as individuals. If we continue to accept this status-quo of invisibility, an entire generation of homeless people will pass away without a trace.
People are speaking a lot these days about media democratization. In a previous podcast, I talk about democratization of power, as well as how to get there. Still, these goals are far off, despite the fact that everyone’s convinced how close we are. The power of media creation is still in the hands of the rich - those with expensive computers, broadband connections, and the necessary knowledge. And let’s not forget how difficult it is to create stuff when you’re working hard trying to support yourself (and your family, in certain cases).
When I look at Homeless Nation, I see people actively working to topple that structure. They give homeless people what is necessary to reach people, just like podcasters and videobloggers are trying to reach people. They aren’t deciding what’s worthy - instead, they’re placing that in the hands of their users. For that reason, I want to be a part of what they’re doing.
Next week, I’ll be working with them at ATSA (roughly translated, Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action) for a week in the park at Berri-UQAM, doing all sorts of audio and video recordings, interviews, etc. Come by if you’d like, we’d love to see you there.
Anyway, I’ll probably end up blogging more about what I’m going through with these guys as time goes on. Thanks to everyone that’s shown support for what I’m doing. You can subscribe to the Homeless Nation RSS feed here.
Filed by Julien at 5:28 pm under projects, political, podcasting
3 Comments
From CrimeThInc:
Click the image for more.
Filed by Julien at 1:34 pm under political
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