1. Call out Politicians

In my opinion, one of the most important roles of a newspaper is to keep public figures honest. The Globe does that, on occasion, such as when the Globe called out Mayor Menino to push for MBTA reform. I’d love to see the Globe take a more active role in pushing politicians to pursue positive policy change. A great start would be having a section that lists all the politicians, their campaign promises, and what they’ve done to fulfill those promises.

2. Promote Local Bloggers

As someone who received the Boston Globe bump, I know first hand that the Globe does try and promote the little guys. They could do a better job, by creating an archive of bloggers linked to before (to preserve the link juice), but being featured on the Globe’s homepage is a start and can be a launching point for Boston bloggers. I’ve heard from many other bloggers who wish their local paper had a similar feature, so kudos to the Globe for sharing some of their massive traffic with Boston bloggers who also help drive traffic to the Globe’s site.

3. Easy to Read Design

I’ve heard from a lot of people that they hate the Boston Globe’s design. Don’t count me as one of those people. For all their faults, in my eyes their web site’s design is not one of them. Sure it’s a bit cluttered, but it’s a newspaper. They have tons of content they want to showcase and in my opinion, their design accomplishes that without completely overwhelming readers. Plus, when you click through to a single article their typography and layout is spot-on and makes for a pleasurable read.

The only change I’d like to see happen is a section that showcases local news. I know the Globe does write about local stories, but they’re often buried out of sight off the homepage. Having a Boston stories section would help the Globe and Bostonians stay in touch with what’s going on in the City of Boston.

4. Social Media and Community Building

These two areas are places where the Globe gets kudos for effort, but they could stand to improve both areas. A few months back, the Globe rolled out a community feature, where commenters can create a profile describing themselves a little bit. Looking through some comments, I’m not even sure if this feature is still around, but at least they’re trying to give commenters a persistence presence.

An area where the Globe really excels though, is not just using social media to promote their articles, but more so using social media to promote news within their articles. During the MBTA crash at Government Center, the Globe had a running Twitterstream that showed the latest tweets coming in about the crash. Knowing that they couldn’t possibly match the real-time tweets, the Globe reported as much as they could and also gave readers the option to view the stream to get up to the minute updates.

It’s great to see the Globe reach out to the community for some citizen journalism, though the un-filtered stream was filled with duplicates and even a few tweets that shouldn’t have been there. It’ll likely never happen, but I would love to see the Globe allow commenters to link to their sites. It would provide a background on the commenter and help drive traffic to good commenters’ sites. And if they use Disqus, any SEO worries could be averted.

5. Humor

As yesterday’s crossword puzzle shows, the Globe does have a humorous side. OK, sure, one of my main critiques against the Globe is not focusing on the truly important news, but hey, everyone could use a little laugh in their day.

None of these positive aspects of the Boston Globe are perfect, but I feel they’re ahead of the game compared to most mainstream newspapers. Hopefully they’ll take some of the advice here into consideration. Instead of just ragging on the Globe, my efforts going forward will be on ways to improve the paper. Having the best newspaper possible benefits all Bostonians. That doesn’t mean I won’t call out the Globe in the future, but I’ll try to temper it by also offering ways to improve.

What are some areas you think the Globe does well? Where could they improve?

Repeat as necessary until government simply owns medical industry.

My RSS feed reader was also well over a hundred feeds and quickly kept multiplying how many unread posts it contained (well into the thousands). RSS technology is great because it’s so simple, easy, and quick to sign up for site updates but also dangerous because it’s just as simple, easy, and quick to get overloaded with information! My feed reader now sits at 17 feeds (not counting a 404 report for this site and three delicious tag feeds) with only 51 unread posts (all of which are three delicious tag feeds).

Speaking of those tags, a while back I blogged about del.ico.us tags [yes, I know they dropped the dots but I haven't!] and how they’re useful to setup a system of tasks, such as toread, toblog, tobuy etc.

Well, I realized I’ve rarely blogged about the items in my toblog tag so to solve this issue here’s a nice quick list of six things I was gonna blog about but didn’t for some lame reason(s) but now that I’m motivated we’ll bounce through them quickly and painlessly. I have a total of 54 toblog stories saved, so watch out for a few more quick post n run style articles!

1. Ron Paul hoped to make an impact in New Hampshire primary

On the surface, New Hampshire seems like the ideal place for Ron Paul’s libertarian platform, the state motto is, after all, “Live Free or Die”. The results show Ron only scored 7.7 % of the state’s votes, which makes me skeptical of something; either New Hampshire does not care about living free anymore or the vote was rigged or voters don’t vote well (methinks it’s a combination of all three).

2. Cream of Boston

Are you a young sexy Bostonian? If so, Cream of Boston wants you to sign up for their exclusive dating site for hot people only! I’m not sure quite how I feel about this site yet. Perhaps after I apply and get rejected I’ll form a stronger opinion. As for now, it is what it is. Alternatively, if you’re a smart and hot girl living in the Boston area you can join a much more exclusive club by simply dropping me an e-mail for more, ahem, details!



3. The Gentrification of my neighborhood continues?

When I was younger I really hated the influx of richer, more “sophisticated” people into my neighborhood. All of a sudden BMW’s, cafes, and other signs of the yuppy started showing up in my beloved ghetto fabulous hood. Well, now that I’m older and umm, more “sophisticated”, I welcome the newbies to my hood! Our neighborhood has changed a whole lot over the past ten years, and reflecting back it has certainly changed for the better. There’s a bunch of awesome new restaurants and other businesses (The Avenue Grille, Real Tacos, Astra Salon, Sugar Bowl Cafe), a lot more students from UMASS Boston and a whole ton of renovated triple deckers acting as condominiums.

Well, the trend continues with a proposed new development at the Bayside Expo Center, with a bunch of new shops and office buildings, and I welcome the proposals and new developments. The Bayside Expo Center is quickly turning into an eyesore in an otherwise great area. If you haven’t been to the Dorchester waterfront behind the Bayside Expo Center go soon! It’s now a part of the Boston Harborwalk and is a very nice place to go for a stroll.

4. Dorchester, the most up and coming neighborhood!

As a Dot rat born and raised, at first I was skeptical of all the praise my grimey neighborhood was getting but now love it! In March of last year Business Week named Dorchester as Boston’s most up and coming neighborhood. It’s always been the biggest and most populated part of Boston but perhaps soon it’ll also be one of the nicest places to live. Even now it’s diversity and sheer size makes it a wicked exciting place to live. Rock on Dot!

5. Rock The Earth

Honestly not sure why I bookmarked this site but it’s a non-profit that helps the music industry and its fans act more sustain-ably. I find this a bit ironic as the giant worldwide tours big musicians go on create such a large amount of pollution that it’s a bit hypocritical to ask their fans to cut back. It’s a bit like Al Gore preaching the green lifestyle while he jet-sets around the world. PUHLEEEZE!

6. Massachussets woman commits suicide because of home foreclosure.

So big bad corporations get bailed out when they frack up but honest working class people are criminals who don’t pay their bills?!?!

Here’s a plan, the U.S. government bails out the people with a mortgage instead of the rich corporation. Call it trickle up economics. The poor and middle class people get mortgage only money to pay for their homes, thus keeping their homes and keeping the mortgage companies afloat.

It’s a win-win situation except for the smart and humble Americans who paid for their homes. People like my mom who slowly but surely paid for a house she could (barely) afford.

What a mess. People are dying and becoming homeless while corporations get bailed out by the taxpayers. It’s not government, it’s a racket!

Socialism for the rich, welfare for the poor and capitalism for the rest of us!

OK, now that I’m all outraged and angry let’s end this edition of Webquotes and Counterpoints so I can cool off a bit!

That’s six toblog stories down, 48 more to go.

When the poor need to be stomped on, don’t get your shoes dirty, call Super Bush!

When the middle class starts getting curious, don’t cut and run, call Super Bush!

When we need to demonize socialism for all but demand it for the super-rich, don’t bother calling, he’s already there because he is Super Bush!

Look in the sky, it’s an a-hole, NO, it’s a dictator, NO, it’s Super Bush!

H/T to A Dark Dog for the picture.

What makes little sense is that if Congress believes the President is innocent the absolute best way to show so is to impeach! If there are no crimes, then an impeachment trial would show that. The truth is, they do not want to impeach the Executive branch for fear of dragging their own congressional crimes into the mix.

The truth is that there is enough potential evidence of war crimes that impeachment is a no brainer. Here’s one clear example of perjury by President George W. Bush. On two occasions Mr. Bush stated under oath that he would “…to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, yet he also publicly declared that “The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!” Right there Mr. Bush violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and he should at the very least be held accountable for his perjury. Let’s not forget that he also openly admitted to committing war crimes.

At least there is one man doing his constitutional duty to hold Bushco accountable for their crimes against humanity and against the USA. The man’s name is Dennis Kucinich and he’s a true American hero. Here is a video from Representative Kucinich thanking American citizens for signing his impeachment petitions and providing support for justice. Mr. Kucinich will be making the case for impeachment this Friday thanks to all the support.

Perhaps there is some hope for re-legitimizing the government of these United States of America. Perhaps the Democrats will wake up and realize that we Americans do not want “change”, we want a return to a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The elitist corporate lobbies running our congress and executive branch are not the voice of the average American.

My vote will not go to the McCain-Obama Demopublicans Republocrats but at least Obama can speak and write well. The McCain essay whines about Obama and offers no new information or strategies. Here’s an idea, let’s “surge” Iraq with “our” entire population! Surely then violence would drop to record new lows!

Quick, everyone surge!

If the above did not load, please try the quicktime version.

Now, this video brings up a few points and I’ll blog about how these points exemplify a few of the reasons I won’t be voting for any Democratic candidates during the upcoming elections [or any Republican for that matter].

“Bush is wack, he and Cheney made a big mistake”

No, I don’t believe nor think that the Bush-Cheney tag-team of terror government made a big mistake; rather the two men along with their fellow conspirators (on both sides of the aisle), had a plan and executed it near flawlessly. To call what these men have done over the past eight years a mistake is to decrease the severity of their crimes. Their actions were not accidental, they were planned and our current situation is not a surprise to them nor to their constituents. Honestly, if you don’t realize that Bush-Cheney had a great plan and successfully executed that plan, then you most likely don’t realize the true threat we’re in today because their plan was meant to throw up a smoke screen of ineptitude while they conspired behind the scenes to take this country and its resources from the public.

“Bush and Cheney made this country wack”

No, at least not by themselves. At the very least Bush and Cheney are criminal cowboys with no regard for the law or life or anything besides their own agenda. If this were a movie, we’d have children everywhere buying Bush Cheney action figures. Sadly, it’s not a movie; it’s real life. Our founding fathers realized that the executive branch held a lot of power and that a system of checks and balances must be implemented to prevent dictators from rising up. Well, congress pretty much either gave up or went along with the Bush-Cheney agenda instead of doing their jobs and keeping the executive branch honest and limited. Congress failed us a lot more than Bush-Cheney.

“It’s time for change, I’m even down with blacks”

Instead of an elite rich old white dude, we’ll elect an elite rich old black dude! Wow, what a change! Pigment: the pragmatic solution! Wait, can we just inject Bush with some extra pigment and he’ll be a good president?!?!?!?!The trouble with this country is simple, corporations have the rights of people but not the consequences nor responsibilities that we all share. We absolutely must remove corporate person-hood and stop supporting the Republican-Democratic corporate military marketing media-cracy we’re currently living under. A vote for Obama is a vote affirming that our current system works. It does not.

I don’t vote based on race, gender or other biological factors other than intelligence. Trust me, I’d love to see a black, female, bisexual, poor president just to say we’ve advanced this nation to the point where people do not discriminate based on these factors but that does not mean I’ll vote for someone purely to show we’re not a discriminatory country. I simply do not believe Barack Obama is the best choice for President of this country and frankly don’t trust him. His recent shift to the center might have shocked many of his supporters but it was expected by me. He’s a politician in essence chosen by the mainstream corporate media marketing complex to be their puppet and appeal to the public’s desire for an anti-Bush. Unfortunately he’s not far enough removed from mainstream corporate media marketing complex to represent real “change”.

“If these are leaders, we’re smoking crack”

True. Clinton whines about how the GOP is running roughshod over the country and should apologize instead of doing her job and ensuring congress keeps the Republican executive branch in check!

Obama meanwhile, a constitutional law scholar, recently voted to approve telecom immunity under the new FISA bill, a clear example of an ex post facto law, something distinctly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution!

So, how exactly are Obama (or Clinton) better than Bush? By not being as terrible as him? Call me an idealist but I’ll be voting for someone far separated from these Demopublican-Republocrats.

if conservatives voted for the Libertarians and liberals voted for the Greens or Naders, we’d all be much, much better off.

“Bush is a douche, elect a woman or a black man”

Oddly enough, the end of this video shows an “IMPEACH NOW” sign, while supporting Clinton and Obama who are not actively helping to impeach Bush. So we say one thing but vote another way. If that’s the case then we Americans deserve these flip-flopping elitist politicians who are looking out for themselves above the public. Until we change and demand more and better from our leaders we can’t realistically expect our situation to improve by repeatedly voting between R and D.

My elbow is still a bit tight and sore from the fall I took a few days ago so this morning I’ll share a few more videos from Revver with you.

Daily Greens 86 – Workin’ For The Weekend

One positive benefit of rising gas prices, four day work weeks! Hopefully 4 day weeks are a trend that will continue as workers will be more productive with that extra day of rest and our economy will benefit from healthier people who are not cooped up inside their office five days a week.

No Paine, No Gain

A look back at Thomas Paine and his positive influence on the USA. Should we look to radicalism in our modern times for solutions to our great economic, educational, and environmental issues?

Where is your hippie “hope” now?

A satirical video about Barack Obama crushing the dreams of young kids hoping to become the next star athlete or musician. Personally, I think it’s about time schools integrate rap music into the curriculum and teach students how to use musical equipment in a music class rather than ignoring kids’ interests and discouraging them from following dreams. Sure, everyone won’t make it as a musician or athlete but by providing these kids a venue in an educational setting it could help keep them involved in the rest of their education.

Newspapers

Rest in peace newspapers, you’re simply not efficient or useful anymore. Nearly all of my news comes from the internet, which I’m finding is now much, much more accurate than the generic, corporate run newspapers. Plus, there’s no need to consume a bunch of paper to get a few stories I might find interesting when I can just use the internet to get the most updated version of the story and communicate instantly with others about the story. Attempts by the newspaper industry to adjust without adjusting draws similarities to the movie and music industry, both of whom are still struggling to understand our modern world.

Recycle An Old T-Shirt into a Sexy Bikini

I’d call this reusing more than recycling but in either case it’s a great tip for the ladies out there. We reuse our old shirts as rags around here but since it’s just cloth there’s more than one or two reuses for them.

That is all, folks. Have a great weekend!

Hello Mr. Barr, Green Party Candidate, Mr. Nader, Mr. Paul, and Mr. Kucinich,

I’ve watched some of the mainstream debates on TV but felt they were simply too slanted towards certain candidates and too moderated to truly be called a debate.

An event where you debate Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Bob Barr and the Green Party candidate would provide a truly rational and balanced discussion of how to best shape America going forward. The debate would also draw a lot of attention to 3rd party candidates and hopefully sway more Americans to avoid voting for the Democrats or Republicans.

I’m sending this short e-mail to all of you to gauge your interest in such a debate. If all parties are interested I will start an open-source non-profit organization to raise funds for, market and host the debate.

I truly feel such a debate could be the best in American history and hope you do too.

Regards,

Adam Pieniazek

If all these candidates are interested, I’ll try wicked hard to make it a reality as it’ll give underrepresented political candidates a fair, open, and public forum to discuss their stances and ideas.

What about you? What’s your take on this hypothetical debate? Who do you think would win?

We start off with Matt of HookLineSinker fame. He’s been sick lately but is finally starting to feel better. Being sick sucks so let’s all wish him a super quick full recovery. At least Matt’s sickness gave him a chance to see a great movie, Into the Wild, the story of Christopher McCandless‘ journey into the Alaskan wilderness. It’s a fantastic movie and I recommend all my readers check it out. If you like Pearl Jam you’ll love the soundtrack to Into the Wild, as it’s an all acoustic album by Eddie Vedder. Matt also saw the new Angelina Jolie movie, Wanted, this weekend and saw a stark contrast to the simple but sad beauty of Into the Wild:

Wanted is a great example of 100% American Hollywood. They try to get the audience of people who have boring jobs (99.9%?) and make them feel like they could be a world class assassin and be around hot women and fast cars and blah blah blah. I enjoyed it for what it was but the whole time I’m thinking, I’d rather not have to deal with riding the top of a train, getting shot at, being beat down repeatedly, getting stabbed and cut repeatedly, and just get away from that whole mess and live a normal life. The movie ends with the line “What the @#$% have you done lately?” … How um, cheesy? For starters I overpaid for movie tickets to a movie theater that has sub-par seating and projectors.

I love how Matt describes the chase scene and getting shot at as mundane tasks. I’ve yet to see Wanted, I intended to but will hold off based on that review. I’m perfectly content with my life right now and don’t really need to escape from it. Sounds like a movie I’ll eventually rent but for now the four free passes I have to the movies will go towards seeing Wall-E, which sounds absolutely amazing. Also Matt, I’d highly recommend you go ahead with your plan to get rid of one of your cars and highly encourage you at least consider bicycling to work. Buying a bicycle is easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and it’s already paid for itself through sheer enjoyment and improved health!

Next up is Ahmad Farid from Unleashing Thoughts. Ahmad witnessed an interaction on a bus between the driver and a passenger that was rude on both parts. Ahmad makes a dark realization that:

Two people who have never seen anything bad from the other are just treating each other as enemies.

Unfortunately it is human nature and history that automatically makes us confront others as enemies. Ahmad wonders:

Why do people like to show anger and hatred? Is it for showing strength? Dignity? Honor?

The answer, I believe, lies with our ancestors. They were forced to analyze everyone as an enemy first in order to protect themselves and their family. Those people who assumed everyone was friendly most likely died quicker due to more evil people taking advantage of them. Eventually humans start grouping themselves into communities and were able to overcome sinister individuals and were forced to act nicely to each other but as my post from six days ago and the passenger and driver on Ahmad’s bus show, our angry and aggressive tendencies have a way of showing themselves. It is why many of us must make a conscious effort to be nice but experience anger without thinking about it.

It’s now my distinct honor to introduce the next President of the United States, Douglas Ragan, from The New Pundit. I’ll let himself explain why he’ll be the next President:

I am not actually running for President of the US for a few reasons. One reason is that I am 33. Another reason is that I have no political experience. And lastly, I am a very reasonable person who does not enjoy lying, therefore no one would ever vote for me.

So, he won’t actually be the next President but by not enjoying lying I already have more faith in him than either of the mainstream candidates! The New Pundit continues to act non-Presidential and gets right to work addressing a huge issue for many Americans, oil and the environment:

There are some economic minded types out there who believe that the green movement may be the next big thing in the economy. Some of the ideas would create many new jobs and there are a number of companies who would greatly benefit by getting their green ideas off the ground.

As one of those “economic minded types”, I’ve got to agree that the green industry will be the next big business in the USA and around the world. It’ll require a shift in consumer and corporate behaviors, from planned obsolesce that requires continual consumption to a sustainable model that focuses on local communities and thus strengthens the nation as a whole by strengthening each of our neighborhoods. If we focused all new development in the US towards green methods we could slowly but surely reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and ensure every citizen would have access to clean and cheap energy. It’s a win-win for everyone except the current behemoths of the economy.

Justin from LifeofJustin brings us some good news and bad news. A few days ago his iPhone stopped working:

So at this point, I am ready to barge in to the Apple store here in Phoenix and see what is up with this thing. I am really hoping to get a replacement of some kind. I just hope they don’t make me wait to get a new phone in the mail.

As a fellow iPhone owner, I feel Justin’s pain as the device becomes almost an extension of yourself, when it’s working right. I’ve had a few issues with my own iPhone so I especially understand the frustration of the expensive phone not working perfectly. My own problems have involved poor service, slow response time, and frequent freezing. I’m past the warranty but I might make a trip to the local Apple store and see if they can help me out too, after all Apple’s customer service is supposed to be phenomenal.

The good news from Justin’s life is that he went to Hawaii for the weekend. I’m a bit jealous that he got to just up and go randomly to Hawaii, especially since one of my good buddies just came back from there and had an amazing time there. It’s made me start thinking of taking a trip somewhere myself, though I’ll for sure be biking there once my injuries are healed and bike is fixed so Hawaii is out of the question for now. I’ll be going to the Saco river at the end of the month but want to go somewhere new too. Any suggestions?

Finally Casey from Volunteer Boston discusses a pretty cool non-profit group that helps Bostonians plant orchards in their urban environment.

EarthWorks is a non-profit that works with community groups to plant and maintain urban orchards in Boston. They concentrate on communities with limited resources where they can have the biggest potential impact. EarthWorks tries to connect the neighborhood residents with nature – something that seems quite far off in the middle of the city.

It sounds like a very cool organization. I’ve been considering planting a pear tree in our backyard lately and Casey’s post might just inspire me to go ahead and do so. We already have a small garden but we have just barely enough land for a few trees too so might as well!

Thanks again to all my readers for making June the best month in this blog’s history.