Archive for August, 2009
« Previous EntriesSam Smith
Monday, August 31st, 2009When I was executive director of Seattle’s METRO, I reported to a board of directors forty people strong. Amongst them were the mayor, all nine city council members, the elected county executive, all five county council members, mayors of several nearby cities, and various others. In short, all the key elected officials in the region [...]
ADHD and Health Care Reform
Saturday, August 29th, 2009For tens of millions of Americans, the current debate over health care insurance reform is not – at heart – a solely political issue. It is a question of fundamental rights. Do we, as citizens who pay taxes, vote, and thereby join in the ongoing evolution of our democratic experiment, deserve the right to ‘universal [...]
Prediction Markets – Buying and Sellling the Future
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009It’s not wholly gambling – not in the Vegas sense. But it’s not purely an academic pursuit either – despite it’s uses as a real-world teaching tool. The science of prediction markets is a curious phenomenon – controversial, moderately confusing, and at times, uncommonly accurate. Speculative in nature, prediction markets use the wisdom of the [...]
The Very Real Joys of Virtual Golf
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009Golf is a good walk spoiled. ~Mark Twain Twain *may* have been joking – but regardless of whether he was, or was not serious, there is nothing like packing up your clubs at the end of a sub-par day to make one seriously reconsider one’s hobby. Golf looks simple enough – use a metal rod [...]
GM Survives the Unthinkable
Friday, August 21st, 2009It is poetic, if not altogether overly optimistic – there is a rebirth occurring for the company headquartered in the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan. General Motors has emerged from bankruptcy – promising to be a leaner, more efficient version of its former self. In web parlance, we could call it GM 2.0. The beleaguered [...]
Very Special – Remembering Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009In our collective national memory, the name Kennedy is synonymous with power, privilege, and the dream – faded but still strong – of Camelot. But for millions of others around the world – fathers, mothers, daughters and sons, the name Kennedy stands as a beacon of hope and compassion – of a dream that continues [...]
The World’s Most Determined Bird
Sunday, August 16th, 2009When I was thirteen years old, vacationing with my family on Cape Cod, I had a seagull encounter that stuck with me. I loved to go running over the many sand dunes, and on one particular run, I must have gone too close to a seagull nest, because a gull started attacking me. Twenty-five years [...]
Competitive Wheelchair Dance Sport
Saturday, August 15th, 2009‘To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.’ – Agnes de Mille From the Busby Berkeley musical extravaganzas of 1930′s cinema, to today’s current love affair with televised dance competitions, partner dances have always inspired passion and awe in the hearts of a worldwide audience. For most of us, our [...]
Ground Zero for Crowdsourced Journalism
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009It was an experiment that, according to the opinions of volunteer contributors and paid staffers alike, ended in glorious failure. Glorious, given the innumerable lessons learned about harnessing the power of the crowd to create viable content. And a failure due to the inability to actually create the amount of content originally planned for during [...]
Homes Go Green
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009‘It’s not easy being green.’ While this is an excellent motto for Kermit the Frog, it is also perhaps a source of confusion for current and potential homeowners in the push to embrace a philosophy of sustainability. Despite what you may have heard (i.e. increased construction costs, a scarcity of quality materials, creativity-impinging government regulations) [...]
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