still kind of a trip when I see myself on tv. bizarre. but thank you to PBS for getting the dialog going. our kids are going to be OK IMHO.

You can be a fan of Ernie Manouse on FB here.

What he said:

America today is crippled by fear of failure. The birther movement is, at the very least, a testament to how fear can have us take leave of our good senses. The antidote for this fear is to realize that failure can be a powerful tool if we embrace the lessons it wants to teach us. But to do so, we must first be willing to see our actions as failure.
- Tavis Smiley (full article here)

Sure #tigerblood is funny. What isn’t funny is a history of abuse against women that is ignored until he calls someone a “clown.” THEN he gets fired? Baroo? From the post:

…if the show’s producers are going to take offense to personal verbal attacks the actor makes about them, why aren’t those same producers—as well as the network—offended by his repeated physical attacks against women? Particularly those that have occurred during the eight years he’s been on the show?

Great question. I have written about the media’s increased acceptance of violence against women in particular on the Chron. (via Clara Cobb)

Worth a read on wikileaks Wikileaks, the World’s First Stateless News Organization

Ask yourself: Why didn’t Wikileaks just publish the Afghanistan war logs and let journalists ‘round the world have at them? Why hand them over to The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel first? Because as Julien Assange, founder of Wikileaks, explained last October, if a big story is available to everyone equally, journalists will pass on it.

“It’s counterintuitive,” he said then. “You’d think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that’s absolutely not true. It’s about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero.”

You can’t sell at a profit and make it up in volume. This is just business-common-sense. And this matters because as employees of realistic corporations that are required by reality to sustain themselves, we get frustrated keeping up with the Kardashians. Even the Joneses aren’t keeping up with the Joneses. It’s a scam dude. 37 Signals says it well:

“Now this was all fun and games until somebody promised the Newark schools $100 million in stock based on the fantasy valuation of his under-profiting company. But now it’s real. They’re selling the skin before they shot the bear or peeing their pants to get to the hut or whatever you want to call it. It’s just not good, alright?”

- No outrageous profits after seven years and half a billion users

On the flip side, as they say in the trailer “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” Maybe they are worth 33B. Lord knows as small as our business is, there is no shortage of people hating. I used to take it personally. Not so much these days. It just goes with the territory. It just is.

I was asked to speak at the Joint Ascertainment Session by Natalie J this morning. These are a few links that may be helpful for the attendees to know. In no particular order:

1. Help a Reporter Out – a free competitor to ProfNet.
2. Flip Video cameras – you can buy them on Amazon.
3. Qik – a way to stream video straight to the web from your CELL PHONE! John Culberson is great with Qik!
4. Twitter – y’all have heard of it, but worth joining if you are media. I am at http://twitter.com/eschipul/
5. Texas Franchise Tax (aka Rick Perry’s Business Income Tax). This is a very real issue facing the community with a 100% to 300% tax increase on businesses at a time when we SHOULD be creating jobs. It may be politically prudent to hide taxes at a business level, but realize this effectively becomes a consumption tax which we know disproportionately affects the poor more than others.
6. Fifth Ward CRC
7. IABC Houston – forming a task force on social media with the Mayor’s office for digital inclusion.
8. Slideshare.net – like youtube for PowerPoint
9. Poll Everywhere – free simple polls that people can use text from their cell phones to vote with.
10. Criminal Searches – a free criminal search site, but there are legitimate privacy concerns here. Does having one traffic ticket from some states justify making someone’s birth date a matter of public record?