Author: Dan Kennedy

E-mail update

I think most of my problems stem from the fact that my personal e-mail address, dan {at} dankennedy {dot} net, has become so compromised over the years that it’s practically useless. I’ve been isolating those messages at the source, and it seems like there’s two or three good messages for every 300 spam messages. Worst of all, robots have grabbed hold of it and are using it to try to spread spam to the four corners of the earth.

My Northeastern address, da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu, seems to be relatively unharmed, as does my actual Gmail address, which I try not to use.

Occasionally I’ve seen services that allow you to set up the Berlin Wall of spam blocks: If someone isn’t already in your address book, he can’t get through unless he answers a question or fills out a form or something. Does anyone have any experience with that?

Although even if I set up such a trap for my personal address, it presumably wouldn’t do anything to stop it from being used as an outgoing address by spammers.

Thoughts?

Citizen journalism in Tibet

Global Voices Online is tracking the protests in Tibet, which, according to the New York Times, comprise “the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in Tibet since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a rebellion there with lethal force that left scores, and possibly hundreds, of ethnic Tibetans dead.” (Note: Photo depicts a 2006 demonstration in Oxford, London, England.)

Interestingly, what’s coming in via Global Voices — an international blog-aggregation project begun at Harvard Law’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society — is not all pro-independence by any means. Example:

When those insane dalais gathered in the street today and surrounded and viciously beat those Han Chinese, while they used lighters to light fire to shop after shop, while they threw molotovs at cars parked on the sides of the road, I really felt afraid, and that this is inconceivable. What you are destroying is the very place that you live in. Aren’t you followers of the Living Buddha? You think this is something your Living Buddha instructed you to do, to destroy the very place that you live in? I think that most of these people haven’t thought about this, and that most of them have been deceived by the words of certain people who would see the motherland split! But if you just think about it, just who was it that made Tibet the developed place it is today? Who set up the bridge between Tibet and the whole world? And who is it that sends qualified people each year from every sector to educate the children of Tibet with knowledge and culture? AND who is it that sends aid from every developed city in the motherland each year to assist Tibet? I think you seem to have forgotten all this……

It could be legitimate, it could be propaganda. But there’s no doubt that many ethnic Chinese live in Tibet, as the Chinese government has encouraged internal migration in order to keep the Tibetan independence movement in check. By this estimate, about 100,000 of the 2.2 million people living in Tibet are Chinese, not counting soldiers and police officers. So despite the Dalai Lama‘s message of peace, reports that Tibetans are attacking Chinese seem credible.

The Times is putting out a call for citizen journalists.

If this keeps building, we’re going to see whether the Age of the Internet is more powerful than the Age of Fax. In 1989, the Chinese democracy movement — fueled in part by mass-circulated faxes — came to a horrifying end in Tiananmen Square. The Internet, though, is a significantly more powerful organizational tool.

The Chinese government can try to shut it down, and it may succeed. That’s what the Burmese government did last year. But now, even more than in 1989, the whole world is watching. And Chinese behavior would seem to be constricted given that it’s hosting the Olympics this summer.

Photo (cc) by nic0, and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

E-mail woes

I’m not quite sure how to get the word out to everyone who needs to know, but I’m struggling with some mysterious Gmail problems. I think I’ve fixed it so that I’ll get everything, but it involves monitoring two other e-mail managers to make sure Gmail isn’t killing anything. I may have to abandon Gmail altogether.

If you think I should have responded to you on something but didn’t, please be persistent.

Charles Sennott to leave Globe

Another first-rate journalist is leaving the Boston Globe. Charles Sennott, best known for his years as a foreign correspondent, will join New England Cable News founder Phil Balboni’s new venture, Global News Enterprises, according to a memo written by Globe deputy manager Mark Morrow and obtained by Media Nation.

Sennott will be executive editor, co-founder and vice president of Global News, according to the memo. Here’s the full text of what Morrow had to say:

We are living in a season of too many good-byes, and this one, like so many, is hard. Charlie Sennott is leaving the Globe after 14 amazing years chasing stories all over the region, nation and world. With his unstoppable — indeed, occasionally overwhelming — energy, verve and passion for our craft, he has been a singular presence among us since the day he migrated north from the mad-cap universe of the New York Daily news to take a job with the paper he grew up with and had dreamed of working for from an early age. From day one, he thought big — and delivered. He has also been, there can be no doubt, one of most intrepid reporters in the paper’s history, time and again taking on risky overseas assignments, right up to his return trip last month to Baghdad. (More about that in Sunday’s paper.) I am really going to miss him; we all will.

It will surprise no one that Charlie will land on his feet, in his post-Globe life. He will be joining, as executive editor, co-founder and vice president, a Boston-based web startup — Global News Enterprises — which aims to be the first American-based website dedicated solely to international news. It is an exciting notion, which has already drawn some impressive financial backers, and will doubtless be an adventure. All of us who know Charlie can be sure he is more than up for that.

He won’t be leaving until early April, but he wanted to get the word out as Global News will be announcing his appointment soon. So there will be some days yet to reflect on Charlie’s years with us, to raise a glass and to pick his brain about what is coming next.

Despite Sennott’s long experience in international reporting, he’ll always be known — to me, anyway — as the reporter who told the astounding story of Claribel Ventura, a welfare mother accused of child abuse, and the 100 or members of her dysfunctional family.

Sennott’s story, which closed with a startling quote from one of Ventura’s sisters when asked what message she had for taxpayers (“Just tell them to keep paying”), had much to do with the passage of welfare reform Massachusetts. In 2004, Sennott wrote a 10th-anniversary update.

Sennott is also the author of “The Body and the Blood: The Middle East’s Vanishing Christians and the Possibility for Peace” (2002).

Godwin’s Law* in action

I had been looking for this, but somehow I missed it — until now. Several days ago, Cape Cod Times reporter George Brennan wrote an excellent article on Middleborough selectman Adam Bond’s bizarre and offensive blog post that casino opponents remind him of Nazis. Not to be missed. Yes, he took it down. But it lives on.

*Godwin’s Law explained.

Casino fight turns nasty

The Outraged Liberal, who gets up even earlier than Media Nation (can that 5:27 a.m. time stamp be correct?), says everything I was going to say about the state of the casino-gambling fight. I wouldn’t spin it quite the same way, though. Mr. Liberal takes House Speaker Sal DiMasi to task for his “increasingly strident and personal approach to the issue.”

Well, yes, today’s Globe coverage makes it quite clear that DiMasi is taking it personally. But just because he’s getting personal doesn’t mean he isn’t right. From Matt Viser’s story:

One representative who met with the speaker yesterday said DiMasi “made clear that he wants to win this thing.”

“It’s trying to convince you, ‘I’m right, the governor’s wrong, and we really want your vote,’ ” said the representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. “I thought it was going to be on substance, talk about the pros and cons. But it’s been made pretty clear that it’s more than that.”

Now, this particular legislator apparently thinks DiMasi’s approach is light on substance. But it’s also clear that DiMasi is taking a principled position — “I’m right, the governor’s wrong.” And, in fact, DiMasi’s right and the governor’s wrong. Am I missing something here? Let’s not forget that the speaker is relying in part on data generated by state Rep. Dan Bosley, who’s been studying this issue for years.

Then, too, Gov. Deval Patrick himself appears to be getting personal as well. According to Globe columnist Joan Vennochi (don’t take the buyout, Joan!), DiMasi is getting his back up because he believes Patrick and his minions have been sliming him in the press. Not all that competently, either — DiMasi may be golfing with casino backers, but he’s also telling them “no,” while Patrick has rolled over for them.

Mr. Liberal has come around to the anti-casino position, but he still wants more data and for “cooler heads to prevail.” I’m not sure why. Patrick’s three-casino proposal is the most damaging idea any governor has come up with in a long time. What’s needed is to defeat it — soundly, and by a wide enough margin that he doesn’t try again.

Media Nation on the air

I’ll be a guest on “Radio Boston,” on WBUR (90.9 FM), this Friday at 1 p.m. to talk about the future of the newspaper business. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 1 p.m., and will be available online as well.

Also this Friday, I’ll be on “Greater Boston with Emily Rooney” (WGBH-TV, Channel 2), at 7 p.m. for our weekly “Beat the Press” media roundup.

Spitzer reportedly to resign

The Times is now reporting that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is expected to resign this morning.

I’ve been thinking about why, in the post-Bill Clinton era, Spitzer can’t just brazen out what is at its heart a sex scandal. I think there are three reasons. (There are always three, aren’t there?)

  • The hypocrisy angle. Spitzer is simply too closely associated with having gone after prostitution in the past. He can hardly argue that it’s a victimless crime now. By the way, it turns out that the 2004 bust I referenced yesterday still hasn’t come to trial.
  • The money angle. The thousands of dollars Spitzer spent on prostitutes came from one of three sources: (a) his personal funds; (b) campaign contributions; (c) taxpayer dollars. If the answer is anything other than (a), he’s got big, big problems.
  • The jerk angle. Judging from the coverage, it seems that no one can stand him, and that the Democrats will be just as happy to see him depart as the Republicans. He can’t survive something like this without allies, and apparently he has none.

That said, we should remember that few people believed Clinton could survive revelations of his scandalous behavior with Monica Lewinsky. If Spitzer decides suddenly to dig in his heels and stay, who’s to say he can’t survive — provided his answer to the money question is the right one?

Bailey skewers “gaming” study

There are so many reasons that we’re going to miss Globe columnist Steve Bailey. Among those reasons is his staunch, principled, fact-based opposition to casino gambling. Bailey’s got a good one today, poking holes in the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce study — not that it already didn’t pretty much look like Swiss cheese.

Something I had missed, but that Bailey picks up on right away: the very title is “Casino Gaming in Massachusetts,” thus relying on the preferred PR term for gambling rather than the English language. His description of so-called revenues as gambling losses is dead-on. And he wonders how long it will be before Donald Trump starts seeking a tax cut.

Bailey’s column comes on the same day that the Globe’s Sean Murphy reports that slot-machine revenues are plunging in Connecticut and Rhode Island, showing that oversaturation is already taking a toll. People only have so much money they can lose, apparently. The Patrick administration says it sees no need to revise its numbers, which makes sense once you understand they’re based on nothing but wishful thinking in the first place. (Plus whatever Clyde Barrow jotted down while hanging out in parking lots.)

In today’s Herald, Scott Van Voorhis offers some horrifying tales of gambling addiction, but says advocates are neutral on Gov. Patrick’s three-casino plan because of the money he would include for treatment. The advocates seem not to understand that there will be a lot more gambling, and a lot more addiction, if people don’t have to drive all the way to Foxwoods.

Not to mention that treatment money can always be cut. Especially if it’s needed to give a tax break to Donald Trump.