electronic publishing still needs great editors

http://theeuropean-magazine.com/352-dyson-george/353-evolution-and-innovation

John Lewis is better than this.

Worth watching until the end. The Occupy movement in a park in Atlanta. It is worth watching for a couple of reasons: the peculiar method of managing communications, and the peculiar response to John Lewis. I have two observations.
1) Nothing will get done, ever, with this approach to consensus and democracy. Seriously.
2) There are several speakers who have words to regret: "John Lewis is not better than anyone. Democracy won!" (9:27)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI

John Lewis was a freedom rider long before he was a congressman. That was back when the state was the enemy and would kill you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI

In another video we have an "Old Marxist" leading a chant that I believe trivializes John Lewis's contribution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lPLL_YMeeE

Why folk get crazy about the idea of socialism, its not just sharing.

On forced labor, Trotsky had this to say in 1921:

It is said that compulsory labor is unproductive. This means that the whole socialist economy is doomed to be scrapped, because there is no other way of attaining socialism except through the command allocation of the entire labor force by the economic center, the allocation of that force in accord with the needs of a nation-wide economic plan.

I imagine that if Stalin was present at the Third All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions, at which Trotsky made these remarks, he must have nodded in agreement. In view of Trotsky’s own sentiments, it is likely that if he had succeeded Lenin, we would have witnessed in the Soviet Union much the same oppression of labor as he did under Stalin.

From: http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/80739/trotsky-the-jew/ 

On today's Blackberry Spasms ...
(https://www.ivyexec.com/professionals/insights/insightscat/8843/555 )

I don't miss my blackberry. I liked having one when it was new. At the end of my career I hated it. Not the box per se, but the unspoken assumption that it would be the center of my attention at all times and I would read everything sent, as soon as it was sent, and then care.

Three days without a Blackberry probably did more to improve interpersonal communication among coworkers than any other recent innovation.

After several months reflection I now believe that no one could have written the Gettysburg Address if 999 out of 1000 executive branch communications were done Blackberry Style.