traditional media

My thanks to the good folks at On The Earth Productions for this clip of Noam Chomsky.

We have another one of those “amazing history” stories for you today—and this one’s a real doozy.

We’re going to spend the better part of four years in the Italian Alps (or, to be more accurate, what was intended to be the Italian Alps), and by the time we’re done, nearly 400,000 soldiers will have been killed—and 60,000 of those will have died as a result of avalanches that were set by one side or the other.

In the middle of the story: a mountaineer and soldier who was so highly regarded that even those who fought against him accorded him the highest honors they could muster, creating a legend that lives on to this very day. And even though a young Captain Erwin Rommel fought in these battles...it’s not him.

Oh, by the way: did I mention that there are also some handy object lessons for anyone who might be thinking about fighting a war in Afghanistan?

Well, there are, Gentle Reader, so follow along, and let’s all learn something today.

We’re diving deep into “geek world” today with a story that combines economic hardball, the periodic table of the elements, and a barely noticed provision of the Defense Authorization Act that seeks to break a monopoly which today gives China near-absolute control over the materials that make cell phones, electric cars, wind turbines, and pretty much every other tool of modern life possible.

If we successfully break the monopoly, we’ll be able to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in this country—and if we don’t, somebody else owns the 21st Century. Ironically, the global warming we’re trying to fight with new green technologies might be an ally in our efforts to make those very same green technologies happen.

There’s a revolution in industrial processing going on, rare earths are at the center of it all...and in today’s story, the revolution will be televised.

I have a Thanksgiving story for your consumption that has nothing to do with turkeys or pumpkin pie or crazy uncles.

Instead, in an effort to remind you what this holiday can really stand for, we’ll meet some people who are thankful today for simply being free.

It’s a short story today, but an especially touching one, so follow along and we’ll take a little hop across the Atlantic for a trip you should not miss.

Alarmed by the daily drumbeat of stories about the demise of newspapers in their hometowns, some members of Congress are proposing ways to help, from allowing media organizations to form as nonprofits to easing antitrust laws.

But the proposals have met with skepticism from some newspaper analysts who worry about the media’s ability to maintain its autonomy.

John Nicholls and Robert W. McChesney published a rather fascinating article in The Nation this week, suggesting that the answer to the newspaper death spiral is a government bailout - a combination of free postage, subsidies, and other means to economically support media and reporting in the US.  I'm not sure how I personally feel about this idea- it grates against all my instincts, yet it's at least a proposal that I can believe would be more likely to have a positive effect than most.

On another note - from the local Wisconsin viewpoint, two of our state local papers are cutting Mondays out of their publication schedule. And so journalism continues to die by a thousand papercuts.