We’re on day two of November, and despite daylight savings time, you may already be behind. That is, if you’re a writer. November is chock full of writing-themed challenges, most of which involve writing at breakneck speeds.
In response to NaNoWriMo, a group has declared November to be National Blog Posting Month as well. The challenge here? Post one time daily for the entire month of November. According to Twitter, the challenge is being met.
So, whether you’re interested in writing a novel or just getting your blog back in shape, you’ve got options. But, you better get cracking, the month is already 2 days old. So, here are some ideas to help get the creative juices flowing:
“Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,” Forgas wrote.
You could go so many directions with this. First, it’s an interesting story to dissect based on the headline. The actual study offered some interesting details on the benefits of both positive and negative thinking, but then again, “Balancing positive and negative thinking boosts memory and creativity equally, study finds” is not a very compelling headline.
The 20 story tall ship, The Oasis of the Seas narrowly cleared the Great Belt Fixed Link while departing on it’s maiden voyage. This is really good news, and passengers should revel in this for a while. After all, the cruise is headed to Florida, which means it’s all downhill from here.
Go meta! Use November’s tribute to writing to pay tribute to another November dedication — sandwiches! November 3rd is the home of the oft-overlooked Sandwich Day. The good folks over at lemondrop have compiled a list of 16 sandwiches for their readers to vote on. A friend of mine has a published poem titled, “Ode to the Sandwich” which you can find in his book, The Date Fruit Elegies. Paying tribute to the art of food while making social commentary is possible, people!
In a total shocker, Ford has announced nearly $1 billion in profit during the 2nd quarter. The company is crediting cost cutting, but did cash for clunkers play a part?
On a sour note, President Obama has warned of more job losses looming in the future. I’m not sure about you, but now might be a good time to take advantage of November’s writing-centric themes. Just think, this could lead to selling your novel, or open the door to the next breakthrough blog that takes the Internet by storm.
We’re taking the challenge, and I’m going to get things rolling on my own personal blog as well. We’ll see how that goes.
This might feel a little like a Mashable round-up, but even still it’s an interesting subject. There’s no question that social media is on the rise. Consider the recent research from database firm Drake Direct which shows Facebook now accounts for 25% of all US page views. Period.
The rapid growth of Twitter is also evidence in this, and the recent deals the company has made with both Bing and Google insures that those who search for content on the web are bound to run into more tweets in the not too distant future. Social search is quickly becoming a reality.
Let’s face it folks, the bubble is expanding.
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, sit for a family portrait in the Green Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2009. (Official White House Photo)
Social data has never been more widely available, publicly. Facebook has every update you post, what you eat, what you like based on polling apps, and more importantly who you are connected to. The connections gap is narrowing as well. Sure, celebrities on Twitter are one example — with one click you can follow you’re favorite celebrity. But consider that by following the White House photostream I can get updates on our president. The degree of access is multiplying. It’s certainly not the most profound form of transparency, but it’s a trend. And the trend is going to continue.
What do you think, should the government be more open? Should Twitter be required reading for the future of journalism? Is social media the key to unlocking this, or just more noise from the Internet?
As you know, our community helps us find stories to feature on the Current.com homepage by submitting links, video clips, and voting/commenting on community submissions to increase popularity. We keep an eye on the discussions taking place on Current.com, and whenever one appears to be trending we feature it in Current Stories on the homepage.
Here’s a list of the top 5 discussions on Current.com right now, take a look.
The dollar is slumping, gold is on a steady rise, and Gulf states looking to replace the dollar as the currency for oil deals. Is an economic power shift on the horizon? [rawstory]
Zachary Christian is likely having a rough day, he’s facing 45 days of reform school for bringing his Cub Scout eating utensil to school. I’m not sure about you, but thinking back to my time as a six-year-old it was all my parents could do to keep me from bringing my cool new stuff to school. It didn’t matter that they could potentially get broken, the urge to show and tell was too great. I wonder what noted Eagle Scout, David Lynch, would have to say about this story? [boingboing]
And lastly, Current News online producer Andrew Fitzgerald posted this story on the Current News blog, and quite frankly I’m not surprised that it’s picked up steam.
“President Obama gave a speech at the dinner and promised (again) to end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. It was an important night for Obama, who’s commitment to the gay rights movement has been in question lately.
So that was Saturday night and then Sunday there was the big march. And meanwhile online, people were pointing out that the speech Obama gave was more or less a recycled campaign speech.
And so not 24 hours after the speech came this from CNBC Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood who said the Obama Administration wasn’t worried about gay activists. He said:
“Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the Internet left fringe….For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition, one adviser told me those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.”"
So what’s your take? Should approval rating factor in here? When is the right time to push forward on this issue? Weigh in here.[Current News Blog]
Over on the Current News blog, Andrew posed the titular question in response to news that the White House asked the Tibetans to ‘postpone’ a meeting with the President. My take? I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Andrew. Obama’s decision to postpone his meeting with the Dalai Lama only opens the door for you to spend more time with his Holiness. What are you waiting for? Weigh in on this story here.
In a shocking change of pace, this legalization story is picking up some steam on Current.com, this time from a UK perspective (e.g. the source article comes to us from the BBC). These days California is either seen as a trailblazer (as this article points out, should we adopt a legalization plan to profit off the legal sale of the plant), or a ripe candidate for the title of “America’s first failed state.” Tell us what you think here.
F.D.I.C. Chairman Sheila Bair told the Institute of International Finance:
“I believe that the new regime should apply to all bank holding companies that are more than just shells and their affiliates regardless or not whether they are considered to be systemic risks.”
Bair’s comments are striking a chord with community members who are tired of the “rewarded failure” approach, but we want to hear your thoughts, too. Add to the conversation here.
Okay, I agree with all of the unjustified lawsuit claims on the basis that Woolworths and Apple couldn’t be further from each other. On an unrelated note, whenever I read word “Woolworths” I can’t help but think of John McConnell’s mispronunciation of the store’s name in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, “And stay outta the Woolsworth!”
But, I have to say, if I were Woolworths I’d have to be loving this lawsuit. I mean, what better way to announce the five-and-dime’s return? Oh wait, this is an unaffiliated Australian supermarket named after the original Woolworths. Nevermind. WTF Apple? Let Apple know how off-base they are over here. jh6wcyrsf5
A pretty nice list for today’s top 5 on current, so curl up to your lunch (or mid-afternoon snack if you’re on the East Coast), and give these stories a look. I’ve even included a bonus for those of you who make it all the way to #5.
Even with growing awareness around climate change, the US trails in awareness on a global scale. It looks like this may end up costing us:
“Nobody should dream of the possibility that numbers and targets for countries will be sealed in Copenhagen,” said Schellnhuber, one of the world’s foremost climate scientists. “If the US doesn’t move then nothing will happen.”
He added: “The US in a sense is climate illiterate. It is a deeper problem in the US, if you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change. Even in Brazil and China, you have more people who know the problem, who think that deep cuts in emissions are needed.”
High in the hills of Kenya’s Mau forest, some 20,000 families are facing eviction from their farms – accused of contributing to an ecological disaster which has crippled the country.
The authorities are to start the process of removing them any day now. Farmers will be asked to surrender their title deeds for inspection.
If their documents are genuine, they have a chance of being resettled or compensated.
If not, they will simply be told to go.
“We are afraid. Not only me, but all of us here,” says Kipkorir Ngeno, a teacher and father of six, from a village known as “Sierra Leone”.
“They call us squatters – a very bad name. But this is my land. It is not illegal.”
Andrew Fitzgerald, online producer for Current News, posted on the blog about this disturbing story from Guinea about pro-democracy demonstrators who were killed in the streets by soldiers. He’s busy gathering more information on this story as it develops, and plans to have raw video footage up this afternoon.If you have anything to contribute, or just want to comment, please head over here.
Political signs seem to be frequently accompanied by misspellings and grammar mistakes. My theory is that people get so excited about expressing themselves that they overlook the simple gaffes made in their haste. Or, perhaps our illiteracy extends beyond mere climate change awareness.Read more here.
Facebook was the center of a stir yesterday when a user posted a poll asking other Facebook users, “Should Obama be killed?” The shocker is that 5% of the respondents actually said “yes” in response, before Facebook disabled the application used to create the poll. Now we are learning that the U.S. Secret Service is launching an investigation into the matter, in partnership with Facebook.Read more here.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the altered-for-the-trailer version of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” is going to be included on the soundtrack. Thanks for pointing this out, richjm.
A user created the poll using a Facebook application on Sunday, and it was brought to wider attention earlier this morning. The optional responses pointed to the ongoing health care reform debate that is being widely discussed nationwide.
The site responded to the attention by disabling the application used to create the online poll. RAW STORY contacted Barry Schnitt, director of policy communications for Facebook, and he had this to say, “We’re following up [with] the developer to ensure the offending content has been removed and that they have better procedures in place going forward to monitor their user-generated content.”
We featured the original story on the Current.com homepage, and not surprisingly our community was pretty disgusted by the mere concept. Even more interesting is the results:
As of noon Monday, 90 percent of respondents had said “no.” Just over five percent said yes, 2.6 percent said maybe, and 1.9 percent said “if he cuts my health care.”
That even 5% of the respondents said “yes” is pretty surprising, and it prompted wayseeker to add:
“Could be another symptom of a cancer growing within our society perpetuated by the radical element of the conservative movement or it could be just a stupid childish prank. Let’s hope it’s the latter.”
* Special thanks to bansheewail for submitting this story to Current.com.
It’s Wednesday, and on the west coast it’s the lunch hour. So if you’re looking for something to read, discuss, or share, I humbly offer a list of the top 5 stories the Current.com community is reading and discussing:
And certainly, at the moment, religious groups are far from standing united against the healthcare plans. Many more liberal Christians – and indeed Muslim and Jewish leaders – are also rallying to support the administration’s proposals. They are doing so on religious grounds themselves: that there is an ethical obligation to look after the weak and the sick. They are calling on their supporters to oppose the rightwing shock-jocks and commentators spreading untruths about the proposals and they have sponsored a television advertisement urging reform. The Rev John Hay of Indianapolis, featured on the advert, said current health provision “is no way for the most blessed country in the world to treat its most vulnerable citizens. This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of healthcare.”
We’ve had a week of sex scandals in schools. Now Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University in the UK, seems intent on stirring things up on the academic front.
“Female students,” he declares,”are a perk of the job for male university lecturers – though they should look, not touch.”
With quotes like these, no wonder it’s stirring things up.
[ed. note: the misspellings below are copied verbatim from the source article on GlobalPost]
Venezuelan state TV today broadcast an exceprt from “Family Guy” as an example of how the U.S. promotes drug use. The clip features Stewie, the matricide-obsessed infant son of Peter and Lewis Griffin, singing a song extolling the virtues of smoking weed.
“We can observe how [the U.S. government] promotes and incites the population to consume that drug there,” said Tarek El Aissaimi, Venezuela’s Interior Minister. “There’s no subliminal message. It’s an animated cartoon where you can observe perfectly how they promote consumption and moreover they foster the legalization of marijuana.”
The heightened standard is designed in part to restore the confidence of Congress, civil liberties advocates and judges, who have criticized both the Bush White House and the Obama administration for excessive secrecy. The new policy will take effect Oct. 1 and has been endorsed by federal intelligence agencies, Justice Department sources said.
“What we’re trying to do is . . . improve public confidence that this privilege is invoked very rarely and only when it’s well supported,” said a senior department official involved in the review, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy had not yet been unveiled. “By holding ourselves to this higher standard, we’re in some way sending a message to the courts. We’re not following a ‘just trust us’ approach.”
Judging by how well this McCarthyism mash-up (via The Huffington Post and comprised of McCarthy-era footage and claims that Obama and company are a band of Communists from the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh) plays, I’d say we’re a stone’s throw away from Congressional hearings.
Don’t think so? At around the 6:05 mark, footage taken from the Chris Matthews helmed Hardball (from last October) features Congresswoman Michele Bachmann laying out what she would like to see occur:
“What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look, I wish they would, I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and take a look at whether they are pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose like that.”
Havana has hosted the biggest open-air concert since the 1959 revolution, featuring some 15 top Latin American, Spanish and Cuban performers.
An estimated one million people – many wearing white – attended the free event in Revolution Square, Havana.
Colombian singer Juanes, who organized the Peace without Borders concert, received death threats from Miami-based critics of the Cuban regime.
But he had the support from 20 high-profile jailed dissidents inside Cuba.
Air America: Republican revives racist Obama-as-monkey campaign themeAccording to a post over on the Air America blog, former Minority Whip Roy Blunt crossed the line, sharing an anecdote at a Values Voter Summit on Friday, in which President Obama is ultimately compared to a monkey. It feels like we’ve gone over this at least once or twice before. Anyway, here’s what he had to say:
“Almost from the day the first ball was hit on this golf course something happened they didn’t anticipate: monkeys would come running out of the jungle and then grab the golf balls. And if it was in the fairway, they might throw it in the rough. And if it was in the rough, they might throw it — they might throw it back at you! And I can point to great and long detail about how many things they tried to eliminate the monkey problem, but they never got it done.
So finally for this golf course and this golf course only, they passed a rule and the rule was, you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. And that is the rule in Washington all the time.”
“Our family is very open and comfortable. We don’t want our children to feel inhibited in their own house,” A.J. Demaree said. “If they want to run around in their underwear, if they want to go run and grab an old Halloween costume and throw that on and run around the house, or if they want to run around the house naked and play around, that’s what we encourage.”
The police and Child Protective Services saw it very differently.
The three children, ages 1½, 4 and 5 at the time the pictures were taken, were removed from the home and placed into the care of Child Protective Services. It would be a month before A.J. and Lisa could regain custody of them.
From the Demarees perspective, the damage was already done.
“We went on a central registry of sex offenders. Our names went on that registry,” Lisa said.
Atheists in America are the most widely mistrusted groupOver on Psychology Today, Gad Saad Ph.D digs into a recent article published in the American Sociological Review in which atheists favored poorly in the “trust” department.
In a recent article published in the American Sociological Review, Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann reported their findings, on how atheists are perceived, based on data from a national survey. To the question, “This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society,” ten groups were listed as options: religious groups (Muslims, conservative Christians, Jews), racial groups (Hispanics, Asian Americans, African Americans, and White Americans), homosexuals, recent immigrants, and atheists. By far, the most “detested” group were the atheists. To the question, “I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group,” eight of the latter groups were included (homosexuals and recent immigrants were excluded). Again, the least desired group were the atheists. This might be one of the saddest scientific findings that I have ever read.
“When she was 11, a Swedish-born girl was taken on vacation to her mother’s native Somalia. The mother wanted to “make her daughter clean” and paid a man to cut off her daughter’s clitoris and labia while two women held her down. Afterward, the girl was stitched to her urethra. No anesthesia was used.”
Vanguard’s Mariana van Zeller has covered the practices of female genital cutting in Africa before, specifically in Sierra Leone while on assignment. If you haven’t had the chance to see her report, give it a view:
It’s Friday, but before you head off for a weekend of fun in the sun, take a look at some of the stories rising in popularity over on Current.com. Remember, votes and comments help make stories more popular.
