I've been a broadcaster for 17 years, but Sunday's Academy Awards pre-show "Live From The Red Carpet" on Oscar.com was the first time I've ever hosted a show on the web. It was an eye opening experience to say the least, for me...
While most of the televised pre shows have a live element, ours was a two hour live event with no commercials, no teleprompter, no seven second delay, so essentially, no net. We used broadcast quality cameras and technology so what you saw on our site was as clear as what you'd see on your flat screen and our webcast, produced by ABC, was groundbreaking!
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March 10, 2010
Moral Cowardice and the Third Reich: The Legacy of Pius XII
Of late it's been a tough time for those working to prevent genocide. Darfur has been off the world's radar screen for months. Then there's the poor Armenians. It wasn't enough that 1.5 million were murdered in a genocide perpetrated by the Ottomon Turks during the First World War. Turns out that for the sake of appeasing Turkey and its increasingly militant Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Obama is prepared to allow others to rewrite history and deny there was ever a genocide in the first place.
Breaking his campaign promise of January, 2008, where he said that he "stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide" and that "as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide [which is] not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," President Obama changed his tune last week. After the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution that declares the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, the Obama Administration urged the committee not to pass the measure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to stop the resolution where it stands for fear of angering Turkey.
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Breaking his campaign promise of January, 2008, where he said that he "stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide" and that "as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide [which is] not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," President Obama changed his tune last week. After the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution that declares the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, the Obama Administration urged the committee not to pass the measure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to stop the resolution where it stands for fear of angering Turkey.
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Purple Lab’s Debut on HSN
February 18th, 5a.m., I woke up in a pool of sweat. In four hours, I was about to be on HSN for the first time. I couldn't even recall the name of my foundation! And my heart sounded like a bass at a Motley Crue concert.
Everything I had worked for was about to come to fruition. Purple Lab was happening!
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Everything I had worked for was about to come to fruition. Purple Lab was happening!
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Why Departing Dems Have It Right, By the Numbers
It's not often that someone turns in his membership card to the most exclusive club in the land. But when Evan Bayh decided to give up his seat in the U.S. Senate last month, he sparked a trend continued by Rep. Eric Massa this week. The departing legislators, citing partisan politics, give inside-the-beltway confirmation to something Americans have felt for years - Washington is broken.
We think Bayh, and those who continue to follow him, are onto something. And the numbers back them up. According to data from our users in 50 states, a quarter of the U.S. Senate votes along with its constituents only 30 percent of the time. In other words, when these 25 Senators, Republican and Democrat, say yea or nay on the Senate floor, they're voting against their hometown neighbors on two-thirds of the country's most important issues. What's more, half of the Senate votes against those back home more than 50 percent of the time.
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We think Bayh, and those who continue to follow him, are onto something. And the numbers back them up. According to data from our users in 50 states, a quarter of the U.S. Senate votes along with its constituents only 30 percent of the time. In other words, when these 25 Senators, Republican and Democrat, say yea or nay on the Senate floor, they're voting against their hometown neighbors on two-thirds of the country's most important issues. What's more, half of the Senate votes against those back home more than 50 percent of the time.
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March 9, 2010
Gabourey Sidibe On Gerard Butler: ‘I’d Hit That’ (VIDEO)
Gabourey Sidibe didn't get to take Justin Timberlake to the Oscars, but she did enjoy a red carpet encounter with another of her Hollywood crushes, Gerard Butler.
Gabby told Access Hollywood that she met Gerard for the first time Saturday night but botched things up when she stepped on his foot.
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Gabby told Access Hollywood that she met Gerard for the first time Saturday night but botched things up when she stepped on his foot.
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Jan Vormann: Artist Used Legos To Fill Cracks In New York Buildings
German artist Jan Vormann and a small army of volunteers spent the past two weeks filling cracks in New York City buildings with Lego bricks.
Vormann arrived in New York two weeks ago "to support Mayor Bloomberg in his everyday-struggle to make this city even more amazing," the artist said on his project Web site. This is not the first time Vormann has used Legos in this way, but the New York project appears to have involved an unprecedented number of locations.
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Vormann arrived in New York two weeks ago "to support Mayor Bloomberg in his everyday-struggle to make this city even more amazing," the artist said on his project Web site. This is not the first time Vormann has used Legos in this way, but the New York project appears to have involved an unprecedented number of locations.
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The Desert
When we go into the desert in our own time, we need not go to a particular geographical location. The desert is all around us. We find the desert in the city and in the country. We find it in our work and in our relaxation. We find it among friends and among strangers. We find it within and outside ourselves.
We need to go into the desert in order to be tested, to discover again our essential humanity. We need to be free from the illusion which denies that we are the children of God. And so we suffer the temptations of Jesus: if you are really the son of God, if you are really the daughter of God, you should be able to feed all the hungry of the world. You can turn every one of these stones into loaves of bread. You should be able to take on worldly dominions. You should be able to attract all the nations to yourself. One gigantic crusade will do it, winning you the certainty of God's favor.
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We need to go into the desert in order to be tested, to discover again our essential humanity. We need to be free from the illusion which denies that we are the children of God. And so we suffer the temptations of Jesus: if you are really the son of God, if you are really the daughter of God, you should be able to feed all the hungry of the world. You can turn every one of these stones into loaves of bread. You should be able to take on worldly dominions. You should be able to attract all the nations to yourself. One gigantic crusade will do it, winning you the certainty of God's favor.
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Liberal Media Again Serves Republican Interests
It happens all the time, of course. The "liberal" media, in its effort to be even-handed and to inoculate itself from the dreaded slander that it is liberal, engages in he-said/she-said journalism. This is at the expense of actually getting the story right, providing useful context or more generally providing the information necessary for individuals to make informed decisions about politics.
As but only the latest instance of this endless abdication of journalistic responsibility concerns coverage of the debate about the use of reconciliation to pass health care reform. As Jamison Foser detailed at Media Matters, when the GOP used reconciliation to "ram through" the Bush tax cuts of 2003 (at a cost of $1.8 trillion), the media barely mentioned the term.
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As but only the latest instance of this endless abdication of journalistic responsibility concerns coverage of the debate about the use of reconciliation to pass health care reform. As Jamison Foser detailed at Media Matters, when the GOP used reconciliation to "ram through" the Bush tax cuts of 2003 (at a cost of $1.8 trillion), the media barely mentioned the term.
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