Sunday, May 09, 2004

Hey John Kerry, while you are thinking about a running mate, consider this: John Edwards' blog gets more comments than yours does. OK, yours has more posts...but still. Edwards has a real community out there (what if, oh what if, he had started building it earlier...) People like the guy. They feel energized by him. And while we're at it...Erskine Bowles, please look at what Edwards has created. Then consider that he waited too long to build it... 4:00:37 PM    comment []

Halley Suitt has a cool new job: Author-In-Residence for National Center For Women And Information Technology. Bonus: she gets paid to spend time in Boulder. 10:11:28 AM    comment []

Daniel Okrent, the NYT's public editor, goes on the offensive against the Times' fulsome coverage of the Tony Awards, which he calls an "artistically meaningless, blatantly commercial, shamefully exclusionary and culturally corrosive award competition... ...So how does a newspaper that prides itself on the independence of its editorial decision-making and its commitment to fit-to-print news treat this scam? With trumpets." Lots and lots of articles...and as Okrent points out, lots and lots of ads. The big money in Broadway advertising, he says, helps drive the Times' Tony coverage. A fearless article. Good for him, and for the Times. 9:54:38 AM    comment []

Rafe Colburn: "I find the overlap between the group of people who demanded Howell Raines' head on a platter when the extent of Jayson Blair's plagiarism was discovered and the group that thinks that Donald Rumsfeld should stick it out despite the torture revelations interesting." 9:43:05 AM    comment []

My column in this morning's News & Record is about Greensboro's inability to preserve its modern architecture, including the doomed Burlington Industries building pictured above. Beyond its status as one of the finest examples of corporate modern architecture in the Southeast, the Burlington building is a potent symbol:  "It is a reminder of what Greensboro was a generation ago: a center of industry, a forward-looking city with cool architecture and big plans. And its destruction will mirror the implosion of the textile business that collapsed so quickly after underwriting many of Greensboro's dreams for almost a century. The loss of the building will also symbolize Greensboro's inability to preserve its past." Benjamin Briggs, the executive director of Preservation Greensboro, has a list of buildings he would like to see preserved, including the old public library at Greene and Friendly. Briggs wants to work with businesses and the City to save our architectural legacy -- and he knows we have to move past the divisions caused by the fight over the new baseball stadium to do so. Let's hope businesses and the City recognize the value in what he is doing. 8:18:51 AM    comment []