Newseum -- wrapping fish around the world

Newseum, the interactive museum of news, has a dandy little application: Today's Front Pages Map. It gives you maps of regions of the world, dotted by cities. Drag your cursor over the city to see today's front page of that city's newspaper. Excellent for travelers who want a foretaste what their destination city is talking about, or (loosely) tracking the regional differences in coverage of stories.

    Technorati : hometown newspaper, journalism, newseum

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:37am in Current Affairs, Expatriate Life, Journalism | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Americans, meet your new (tasteless & jingoistic) passport

I was perusing The New Republic today (as Captain Queeg once noted, "these silly little habits have a way of paying off") & was horrified by a little story (sub required, sorry) announcing that the United States passport has been, yet again, redesigned. This time by a bunch of jingoists whose foreign travel was undoubtedly one drunken spring break in Cancun.

Go have a look at the State Department passport site.

For the last 25 years, at least (in other words, ever since I first got one), US passports have been quiet, unobtrusive, unfailingly polite documents, even as the government of the day might have been anything but. The great seal of the United States somewhere; a polite request from the Secretary of State to let the passport holder pass. Some instructions to the passport holder to keep his or her nose clean while abroad. A quiet document that, nonetheless, often earned its carriers a bullet from terrorists in the 1970s and 1980s (rest in peace, Mr. Klinghoffer).

The designers of the old passports knew one fundamental of communication: know your audience! They knew the important readers of US passports are officials of other countries, some friendly to the US, some barely civil, some outright hostile. They knew the job of the passport is to let the holder "pass the port" as quickly as possible. Thus: clear layout, lots of room for stamp-happy officials to do their thing, no propaganda.

The designers of the new passport, however, go at the propaganda with all the gusto and artlessness and inclusiveness of an 8th grade civics class or a Disney Imagineer: A little Lincoln, a little Star Spangled Banner, a little Constitution, a little Martin Luther King... big images of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

The intended audience? Who knows -- but I promise you, if it's the Thai border guard, this is way off. My passports have been literally stamped to pieces in 30 countries, and I cannot imagine one instance where this little civics lesson would have helped me along, and can imagine more than a few where it would not have done me one bit of good. China comes to my mind as place where the jingoism won't go down well, but perhaps that's to be expected. But can anyone expect Mexican and Canadian officials to look on this dribble day-after-everliving-day and not think less of us?

The TNR article notes that many Americans are acquiring passports for the first time (they were not previously needed to visit Canada and Mexico), and so it could be they are the audience. A little reminder of... what? I don't know. That they should be proud while traveling abroad? But proud of what?

My passport has a few more years left, so it's possible a rational design will be back in place when I go up for renewal. I want another quiet, unobtrusive, unfailingly polite document that lets me get where I am going without giving border guards 8th grade civics lessons.

Technorati : Leon Klinghoffer, US passport, US passports, jingoism

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:39pm in Bizarre but Expected, Communication, Expatriate Life | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

Such fun! Copenhagen meetup with Eric Schwartzman

Last night, some of the local social media crowd got to chow down with Eric Schwartzman, PR guy, podcaster and blogger. Eric was in town with his client Andre Lawless after a hectic few days working in the Danish countryside. It was a festive, fun, loud evening and -- and this is the cool thing about social media meetups -- we were old friends within minutes, even though none of us had met more than three or four of the others.

Trine-Maria Kristensen has posted some photos. The other faces are Karin Høgh, Jette Harthimmer, Jan Lund Thomsen, Christine Duus and Asya Partan. And me, of course.

Eric interviewed us all, despite the noisy venue, so you may soon be able to experience Copenhagen vicariously on Eric's 'cast.

I've tagged only the people present with discoverable blogs or podcasts, but I can add others. Just let me know.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:41pm in Bloggers, Denmark, Expatriate Life, Podcasting | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

GChart: Semi-educational GoogleMaps mashup

Gchart is a semi-cool, semi-useful GoogleMaps mashup. Hit a place on the map, and up pops a list of local blogs, flickr photos, and the local time.

It's not foolproof. If you hit South Carolina, Columbia seems to be the only "place". And the flickr photos include photos from the Columbia River Gorge (in the Pacific Northwest), British Columbia, the space shuttle Columbia, and the Columbia Law School (New York) graduation.

More fun than scientific.

Technorati: Gchart, GoogleMaps mashup

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:01am in Cartography, Expatriate Life | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0)

Copenhagen Geek Dinner: tomorrow night

Copenhagen Geek Dinner tomorrow night... about 30 of us: journalists, programmers, designers -- but mostly polymaths with a great touch of geek.

"If truth-in-advertising laws were enforced, "sushi" would be called "cold dead fish".

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:08pm in Bloggers, Copenhagen, Expatriate Life, Food | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Desirable Roasted Coffee is not Tripe...

On Monday afternoon the first in a series of three debates hosted by the European Parliament on the implications of the information society highlighted a number of issues in the use of so-called weblogs. Major concerns were the accountability of "bloggers" and the protection of privacy - or rather the lack of both.

I enjoy living in Europe, my home for over 20 years. Since I get back to the American South fairly often, I'm able to feed my desires for the best of that region, without being overly irritated by the things that prompted me to leave.

If I could ever be prompted to leave Europe, it would probably from a fit of pique sparked by the distrust European officialdom has always shown innovations in media.

Example: 15 years ago, it was illegal to have a satellite dish in Denmark. Why? People might watch who knows what all! And while that "what all" might be as innocent as a Turkish soap opera, it wouldn't be Danish.

Example: 7 years ago, I was on an IFPMA panel discussing the intersection of health care and the Internet. I was seated next to a  functionary of the Belgian health ministry, who sputtered so vehemently that all online discussion of pharmaceuticals and treatments should be illegal, even jailable, that my notes today are even wet with his spittle.

I naively thought we were past that.

But now the European Parliament is holding hearings about blogging. And... they are getting pretty poor advice from the usual suspects: journalists frightened to death, who are willing to drag in any red herring rotting behind the fishmongers.

Here's a quote from the "debate".

"As Karlin Lillington, a technology journalist of the Irish Times pointed out, "journalists face libel laws, whereas some bloggers behave as if they're in the Wild West. Bloggers will state things without saying where they got them from. And increasingly, blogs are used to promote products without making this clear"."

This is fairly easy to parse. Wild West (or cowboy, or John Wayne) is a code-phrase for the US. Americans roar with laughter when I tell them this, but that's just how it is. So what Lillington is really saying is "[European] journalists face libel laws, whereas some [European] bloggers behave as if they're in [the United States]".

Well, that's bullshit. Libel laws apply to everyone. To the extent that those laws  and court precedents differentiate between two classes, it's journalists, not "private" citizens who get the better break.

And bloggers are suspect because they promote products? Well, Desirable Roasted Coffee doesn't and doesn't intend to. But what if I did? What business is it of the European Parliament or the Irish Times? Not much.

We bloggers had at least one ally:

Thomas Burg, of BlogTalk.net, saw things very differently, saying "weblogs are not about content but about sharing, learning and connecting with other people". Blogs should thus be seen as free conversations between people who do not need to adhere to specific rules, rather than as news postings on the Internet.

But he was quickly shot out of the saddle (obligatory cowboy metaphor) by Aidan White, General Secretary (note to Aidan: Socialism is dead... get a new title) of the International Federation of Journalists:

"a democratic society sets certain norms and standards which should not be thrown out of the window. He deplored the lack of a global legal framework to combat child pornography and libellous or hateful weblogs on the Internet."

Note, students of rhetoric, how deftly Aidan White connects your unregulated blog to abhorrent crime, libel, hate, the discarding of democratic norms. You'd look positively anti-social... even criminal... if you object now to having some "norms" and "regulations" put on your blog.

And Karlin Lillington is also quick to question your values, your morals, your stand-upness for the law if you happen to be a citizen journalist:

"As regards privacy, Lillington acknowledged that weblogs after last December's tsunami were a useful source of information and that pictures taken by passers-by after the bomb attacks on the London underground were posted on the Internet quicker than by any established news organisation, but she also stressed that these did somehow damage privacy. However, she added, "these are not new crimes, there are just new tools to commit them"."

Well, Karlin Lillington, that makes it clear. Now I know exactly the difference between a paid Irish Times journalist and a blogger who both witness....  no, hang on... I'll get it right in a minute! Bear with me...

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:55pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Civil Liberty, Communication, Expatriate Life, Journalism, Politics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Yeah, we got eggs in Denmark. And Ireland's Starting to Look Like America

A couple of years ago, I was with an American tourist in a Danish supermarket. He was gape-jawed for a while, then turned to me: "No wonder you don't miss home. You've got all the same stuff here!"

Since we were standing in the egg & dairy section, and had just passed through the produce section, I have to say I was at a loss for words. I know he wasn't, on a purely objective level, surprised we have eggs, milk, cheese, and celery here in Europe but... somewhere, deep down, he was surprised and disappointed.

So I was delighted with Don Boudreaux's post at Cafe Hayek, where he gently but firmly castigates an American who laments that Ireland is starting to "look like America":

Dear Mr. Ebnet:

You are "saddened" that Ireland is becoming economically prosperous. No, that’s not quite right (or fair of me): You are "saddened" because Ireland is losing its "identity" as its people cooperate ever more closely with more and more peoples from around the world in a process that improves their standards of living.

The sight of "foreign manufacturing plants" in Ireland burdens you with "oppressive melancholy." You regret that Gaelic is fading today everywhere as a spoken language, save in the western coast of Ireland – the part that remains poorest and that hasn’t yet been much affected by globalization.

It's not uncommon: the US tourist comes to "quainte olde Europe" for the first time and expects to see Heidi-in-pigtails tending cows in the Swiss Alps, or meet garrulous and sage farmers in a Yorkshire pub, or experience Danny Kaye singing "Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!" while all the fishwives clap flounder in unison. You'd think CNN would have taken care of these illusions, but no.

So my fellow American goes home, disillusioned, disenchanted, grumbling, "I thought Europe would be different."

Why the grumbling? Couldn't tell you. Boudreaux seems to think it might spring from the American expecting no let on his own material wealth while hoping others hadn't cottoned on to the good life. I think it's simpler than that: ignorance of other cultures combined with a genuine desire to see a romantic alternative to McMansions and the "Motor Mile" out on the by-pass.

Doesn't work that way. Never has. Fact is, most of the time, so much more boring than fiction.

ADDENDUM: the "most of the time" in the line just above was a throwaway. I didn't realize London was being attacked just before I wrote it. Too often, when fact is more interesting than fiction, it's because common murderers had, on that day, more imagination than writers.

My own family is coming to Denmark next week, passing through London. They aren't naive; they've been here before: they don't go slack-jawed in the supermarket (Shit! Y'all got apples, too!). But, somehow, I would like to be able to show them it is different here. Not so paranoid. Not so angry.

But that will be a damned hard row to hoe... and maybe the wrong row to hoe... after today.

London has endured far worse days than today. And Londoners are as gritty and bitter and as optimistic as New Yorkers, Washingtonians and the people of Madrid. London, like New York and Madrid, will shrug these murders off and go on.

Copenhagen and Rome are, according to Danish media, next on the list. Well, Copenhagen and Rome have endured far worse than terrorists can throw at them, too. Just like New York, Madrid, and London.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:36pm in Denmark, Economics, Expatriate Life, Travel | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (8) | TrackBack (0)

Why I Left the South: Was Afraid the Kudzu Would Git Me

I'm often asked why I moved to Denmark. Kudzu is the real reason. I figure I'm far enough away to die of natural causes before it gets me.

You think I'm joking? Find the house in the photo below.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:04pm in Expatriate Life, Rapacious Vegetation, South | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)