4 posts tagged “grass roots”

[Cross-posted] Sometimes I surprise myself on what comes up in blog comments. In a thread about the Iraq war and the short memories of nations over on Vox, I wrote the following. And as I wrote, I believed this to be a possible truth.

To go forth in the future we need to discover our past, a hard thing in an age of short memories as you say. … Leadership might not come from size but from those nations that have steadfastly refused to give in to the prevailing decline in so many places. Switzerland, for all its refusal to join the EU, has managed to maintain one of the greatest gun ownership rates in the world yet not have a single gun-related murder attributable to its own in most years; Singapore, retaining its Confucian philosophies, manages a city-state with limited natural resources.
   Their example needs to be communicated to the world, as well as the positive aspects of certain parts of the US or China—they exist, but they are hidden.
   This is one reason to like blogs because they can cut through the shield of the MSM and government propaganda. I do not think that we have reached any critical mass among netizens, networking citizens together in a form of moral leadership. … [T]here are pockets of good people everywhere as you and I have witnessed, just that we are not necessarily visible.
   But that critical mass can come—and if warfare now is at a terrorist, guerrilla level in so many places, I suspect moral leadership itself will come from a grass-roots base.
   The system needs idealists like us, reminding people of their short memories, and maybe change will be effected not through top–down governmental, propagandist methods or the MSM, but through one-on-few communications from each of us.
   I would rather hope that the next superpower, therefore, is not a nation or even an ideology, but a collective of humankind cutting through the BS and revealing the truth. Who says the ’net cannot be a force for good once more? If it can propagate hate and porn, it can just as easily propagate hope and truth.

   I get reminded of this every now and then by others who feel the same way: Chris, at the Edutainment & Convergence blog, wrote to me privately and inspired me. And when I think back to books like Beyond Branding and Typography & Branding, I think there was a great deal of post-9-11 optimism and the desire to build a better, more understanding world. I find passages of my Typography & Branding inspiring, if an author is allowed to be inspired by his own work, and I can’t have been this cynical back then.
   It’s a good zone to be in and I haven’t felt this hopeful about the potential of the ’net in about a year.
   Last year, I was bemoaning the decline of the blogosphere as it began looking more and more like the darker parts of society, with gossipmongers and rude, anonymous commenters finding their way on to it. Where were, I asked, the globally minded idealists of the 1990s?
   On the other hand, their entry into this world surely puts them closer to the hands of the idealists who can now shape agenda, creating more hopeful sites and messages.
   And maybe channelling or finding the above message from my subconscious helped me put things into perspective more. If indeed the state nation is less relevant and change is better effected by people helping people directly, because technology has now made that possible, then the moral vacuum caused by various changes in society can be filled.
   All it needs are willing participants prepared to get together to make the world a better place, regardless of their political, cultural or religious stripes.
   That’s really why I got into media.
   If we agree on this target, then the rest must follow.

There’s the petition, and now there’s an online grass roots’ effort: Dennis West suggests that Americans watch Journeyman next Monday, December 3, on nbc.com. It’s when the 11th episode was meant to be on, but NBC is trialling Life in its timeslot.
   I realize few are going to watch 10 hours’ worth of a single series, but if you haven’t caught it before, I heartily recommend it. At least try the pilot and see if you enjoy it. The high production values are, for the most part, continued, and the writing and acting actually get better.
   If you wish for a two-parter, then the ninth and tenth episodes (eighth and ninth if you don’t count the pilot) are a good choice. Each can exist as an individual story, but the two link together very well.
   And let me dispel one myth: this is not a Quantum Leap rip-off. The fictional Dan Vasser does time travel and does not know why, but it explores his relationship with his wife—especially as Dan encounters his dead fiancée in his travels. But each week, he manages to put right the life of someone he is tracking.
   Those Americans who liked the journey through our recent years in Forrest Gump might get the same emotions watching Journeyman. If you hate reality TV and want to take a stand against its bitchiness and smut, then this is a good remedy. And those sci-fi buffs into time travel shows will love it, because it does touch on paradoxes. It’s far less straightforward than Quantum Leap. Anyone into really well written character-driven drama, remember that Journeyman is from the guys who made The West Wing and it has even more depth. 
   Brits can begin enjoying the series on Sky One. If you are Stateside, please consider giving Dennis’s suggestion a shot.

Perfect for those rhythmic ceremonial rituals. Mickey Maloof informed me today that his McFly 2015 Project has gained more headway: Kanye West is in on the act as his new album cover displays the shoes. ‘Japanese artist Takashi Murakami designed the album packaging (he's best known for his work with Louis Vuitton),’ he wrote. Good on Mickey for influencing Murakami’s decision—which I am sure he did. These shoes may well make it into production at this rate.

Michael Maloof, who is campaigning Nike to make the shoes that Michael J. Fox wore in Back to the Future Part II, notified me earlier this month that he successfully tracked down the patents. They were designed and do exist, the patents registered to Nike, Inc. in the early 1990s, some years after the film:

http://jackyan.com/files/mcfly2015_upper_for_a_shoe.pdf
http://jackyan.com/files/mcfly2015_element_of_upper.pdf

All it takes now is for the company to make them!
   If you feel you’d be in the market for such shoes, Michael is leading a grass roots’ effort. Just fill in your details at www.mcfly2015.com and click on the button—it is rather painless.