Open Government Directive
There are about a gozillion startups and meetups planned. You can’t get off a Metro stop or have lunch without running into one. Google it, Tweet it, or just hold up a sign “OpenGov” in the park and you’ll start one. Just do it!
Kristin Bockius’ OGD News – John Kamensky on OGD
11 Jan 10: Open Government Workshop @DOT
9 Dec 09: Announcement and OGD Memorandum M10-06 Open Government Progress Report
More on: GovLoop ~ OpenGov ~ WhiteHouse
Filed under: Gov 2.0, Networking, OGD, Open Gov, Open Government Directive | Leave a Comment
The Summer of ’69
Prelude to Aquarius – ‘68: The devastation of the Spring and Summer of ’68 when we lost MLK and Bobby, and then got screwed in Chicago led to a Winter of Discontent, with many of us wondering if the pain that started in ’63 would ever stop. One thing did start in ’68 that would be a precursor to our Dawning in ’69: In my first week long session as a Summer Orientation Advisor at UT Austin, I fell in with a group of incredible characters in the form of Media ’70 and the UT Summer Orientation Program.
Summer ’69: Let The Sun Shine. Those events of 40 years ago, in the Forty Acres (as UT was known) were deep down, mind blowing, and soul stamping times for me. Roy, Kindly Kay, Pete, Hunk, Milo, and our own (Benefit of) Mr. K, Jack Kaplan (Asst. Dean of Students) and a few dozen others – the characters sound like figures from some down home Wizard of Oz story, and so they were. That Summer of ’69 was so packed with world events and personal epiphanies that it sometimes does not seem real, and I have to check my 60 year old memories to be sure I don’t exaggerate or mis-speak.
Sixty-Nine Film Festival: To do it real justice, go out and rent (borrow, download, etc.) the following:
Across the Universe
Mamma Mia!
The Buddy Holly Story
Apollo 13
Woodstock
2001
Z
Billy Jack
Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers
Summer of 42
Johnny Got His Gun
Easy Rider
Alice’s Restaurant
Dr. Zhivago
Zabriski Point
Medium Cool
and others that my friends will add to, and gather some few who remember,
lock yourselves in a lake house (somewhere around Hippie Hollow)
or on some slow moving river, with no frats, rednecks or radicals,
with plenty of ice, liquids, munchie foods, and loose clothes and
crank up the 40” Samsung LCDs in several rooms for about a week.
“….wandering form room to room ,speaking of Michelangelo…”
Lake Travis: When you finally stumble out into the sharp, mind-piercing sun of central Texas and dive into the cool, dark water of Lake Travis, and surface for a sweet deep breath of fresh air, look around you and in that instant, you may just have a clue about what I’m writing.
Food and Sunset: Then pile into the ’65 red Fairlane and drive to town, for some of the best Tex-Mex ever, and stop by Mount Bonell to bid adieu to the sun, Hill Country, and Lake Austin, before you have to catch your plane back to Hell, NY. Ha! Technology and memories are wasted on the kids today.
As pasted, posted but with no stamps on UT Summer Orientation (http://media70.ning.com/), The Green Hills of Earth (http://catahoula.wordpress.com/) and FaceBook ()
Barry Everett
UT ’67-‘71
Media 70
Austin Saturday Morning Fun Club
& Co-Founder of the New 60’s Generation
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Where Is My Vote?
Here we go again. These are amazing times, and not long after our observations on the protests two decades ago in China, here we are witnessing the turmoil of Iran’s elections and the posturing of another nuclear threatening dictator in Asia. Not to go into all the details here, as all you have to do is google or tweetsearch almost any relevant word, and the hits will pour onto your screen. Suffice to say that this time, the world is truly watching, and that it is quite amazing how global and immediate these events are now. How odd it is to watch legacy type dictatorships and theocracies trying to deal with media coverage by cell phone and interactive consumer web tools. Of course, when lives are at risk, the stakes are very high.
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Tags: China, human rights, Iran, Korea, protest, revolution, vote
I Am Spartacus
I am Rosa Parks, I am Tank Man, I am the crumpled soldier of Omaha Beach. I am every thinking person, who simply had enough… Of the tyranny, of the inhumanity, of the bull. Will we care? Will we have the fortitude to stand against overwhelming obstacles, when all around us are suffering? Most heroes are ordinary people, who wind up in extraordinary circumstances. Rosa Parks was tired from a hard day’s work and decided not to walk to the back of the bus. Spartacus was tired of his fellows’ torture. Tank Man, from the fottage of that famous standoff, had had enough of tanks in his beloved neighborhood, and stoppped on the way home from shopping to stand down tons of metal and gun powder.
Every time I see the most famous film clip of 6-6-44 on the beach in France, I see a brother, uncle, father, husband, slogging up the sand that day, and simply collapse where he is hit. I have seen it dozens of times, and cannot take my eyes off of it every time it appears on the screen. One second he is cold, tired, mostly scared (I would be), under the weight of full battle kit. The next second he is dead.
Winston Churchill said we can never give in, never, never. Teddy Roosevelt impored us to value the person in the arena, who actually makes the attempt, even in defeat. Rosa Parks knew that she would get into serious jeopardy that day on that bus, if not much worse. Tank Man near the square in 1989 had witnessed untold numbers of his neighbors and students killed the day before, and he stepped into the street and into history.
Not one of the un-armed and lone people mentioned here were victorious in their act, they died or were arrested or whisked away from the scene, but all inspired many victories by their courage and sacrifice. We cannot, we must not ever forget these ordinary people.
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Tags: Churchill, courage, hero, ordinary, Teddy
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