Good Reputation Sleeping

A Death in the Family

Last week Discovery.com, once one of the leading 'original content' online sites, laid off most of what was left of their editorial, design and production departments. Just a few years ago Discovery.com positioned itself to give nationalgeographic.com a run for its money by tapping some of the best of its TV channels' editorial prowess and building new and original web presentations around them. A staff of 60 designers is now down to 2.

Under the direction of former Art Director Pat Kelley (a web veteran with stints as AD at washingtonpost.com and AOL), Discovery.com launch one of the slickest and most usable Flash interfaces for its sites this past spring. While most of that remains, the site itself has turned into little more than a 'TV Guide' for Discovery's TV listings. Too bad 'cause they could have been a contender.

Unacceptable Casualties

From Joi Ito in Japan. What do they know in the rest of the world that we don't know here?

'Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.'

George Herbert Walker Bush's, "A World Transformed" (1998)

Why is the American media (of which I am a part) still not asking these questions?
Right now we seem to be in a long-term, no-happy-ending operation in Iraq. Are our 'acceptable losses' really necessary? To support an invasion and occupation of a country that so far, has proven that is DID NOT have any threat capacity? The loss of life is acceptable - unless it is your husband, wife, son, or daughter coming home in a body bag. This madness has got to stop.

HEAVY ROTATION

In my musicbox this weekend, the new one from what has become my favorite group, Buffalo Daughter. the latest is called Pshychic, and picks up where I, left off. Great electronica with a Pixie-esque-Japanese bent; they have moved alt-rock ahead into the 21st century and they get better with each release!