Gorkana Plans to Launch U.S. Site in September

London-based Gorkana plans to launch in September a U.S.-focused Web site for stateside journalists and PRs, according to a London-based Gorkana director. 

This means Gorkana will more directly compete with journo sites like Mediabistro and PR-centric sites like MyMediaLife on their home turf. 

So far, Gorkana has essentially been known, used and run as an international version of the Mediabistro model with a PR spin: The two sites compete directly in regards to industry tips, tools, networking and events they provide for PR and journalists, but Gorkana has focused more on the PR angle in addition to the journalists' one from the site's founding in 2003.

Anecdotally, journalist friends of ours who work overseas have sung praises for Gorkana regarding international coverage needs, although Mediabistro began to court international members too more seriously several years ago, and holds events like cocktail parties, panels and conferences globally. 

Gorkana has also been targeting both U.S. and overseas audiences for awhile: We started getting emails from "Gorkana U.S." in August of 2007, for instance, when we were based in Alphabet City; we're now based in Brooklyn. 

Gorkana U.S. will continue to reside in its offices at 2 Rector St. in New York, its stateside hub for the last five years, according to the London-based director. 

A Gorkana spokesperson described the new site to us as a relaunch. However, email alerts sent from Gorkana U.S. have referred users only to a Gorkana Twitter feed and Gorkana's London-centric site in the past. 

“The new look and feel will be similar to the UK site, with a community section as well as a products section, which is a significant update from our prior Web site,” the spokesperson says.  

Other sites that serve the journalists-PR nexus, including MyMediaInfo, primarily focus on PR, whereas many journalists-focused sites like JournalismJobs are essentially job listings for media, while others, like Poynter and the Society of Professional Journalists, add journalistic practice tutorials, such as how to best filter census data or how to optimize freedom of information requests. SPJ provides freelancer profiles like Gorkana and Mediabistro. But Gorkana and Mediabistro are somewhat unique in how they cover both journalists' and PR career needs overall, whether freelance or otherwise. Newcomers like journalists' tweets aggregator Muck Rack and marketing outfit Contently, focus on selling PR and "branding" via social networking, but they're essentially journalists' CV honeypots for PR. 

One example of direct competition is in the two sites' "industry tools" area for how to pitch magazines and other publications: "Gorkana Meets…[insert name of big-time editor from big-time publication]" is similar in content to Mediabistro's "How to Pitch: [insert name of big-time publication]." Differences: Gorkana's is a Q&A format that covers what editors want from PRs for pitches as well as what editors desire from journalists, while Mediabistro's is a narrative format that focuses mostly on what editors want from journalists, but will sometimes include pitching tips for PRs. 

Gorkana, though, leans more toward serving PR needs. 

For instance, when describing the launch to us, the Gorkana director cited only one side of the media vortex: "The U.S. site is launching in September and we will be looking for content that will draw PRs to the site, like in the UK…" 

But Gorkana and sites like it might do well by keeping content that services PRs and journalists separate.

Case in point: Gorkana's PR spin, for instance, lost Gorkana an interview for "Gorkana Meets..." with a VIP editor-in-chief of a major U.S. network news site, which we had first pitched to Mediabistro for its "How to Pitch" section before an editorial disagreement on style over a prior piece forced us to look elsewhere. 

Specifically citing Gorkana's PR angle, the editor of the news site for a "Big Three" network passed, saying: "The Gorkana story sounds like less of a good fit for us – we don’t actually want PR pitches... that would be a bit awkward." 

When we asked to keep the focus on journalists to try to save the piece, the Gorkana director balked, saying: "Ah, that's a real shame, because we can't change the focus. Gorkana is a connector between the journalist and PR communities and the 'Gorkana Meets' series was started to show this connection in action."

Fair enough. And actually, the difference in angling between the two sites may be one primarily of perception at this point: Mediabistro courts PRs too. The site has evolved from primarily boosting the networking needs of freelance journalists in its earliest days to catering to all types in the media business, including PR, but also those in the film, book publishing and technology industries. 

That shift has become more evident the past few years following WebMediaBrands purchase of Mediabistro on July 18, 2007 for $20.9 million in cash. (The agreement added a maximum of $3 million in earn-out payments if Mediabistro were to attain certain profit targets. But according to the corporate parent's SEC filings, Mediabistro was paid $900,000 in October 2008 based on the site's results from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. We have yet to find another proposed earn-out payment in SEC filings based on the other predetermined period of the site's results from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. A paidContent piece paraphrases Alan Meckler, WebMediaBrands chairman and CEO, as saying that the economic downturn killed the remaining earn-out.) 

Mediabistro's corporate parent describes the site as targeting anyone who works with content, whether on the creative or business end, including those in "social media, new media, publishing, public relations/marketing, advertising, sales, design, web development, television and more," as well as editors and writers. Gorkana covets much the same; mid-market-focused, London-based private equity firm Exponent through its Durrants press clipping service purchased Gorkana for just under $40 million on April 8, 2010.

Regardless, both Mediabistro and Gorkana lost a great "get" - an editor heading the online news channel of a major broadcast network as the site undergoes a directional shift. Newsy, timely, interesting. Neither style nor spin - concerns that could easily have been assuaged with a bit of discussion and compromise - should get in the way of that good content. But it did. 

So tip. Word to your respective mothers. 

Addendum: Odd we received a mass email from Mediabistro regarding what it called "the constant debate over whether freelance writers and publicists should team up." A brief discussion followed on the etiquette and ethics of such dealings, alluding to the notion that the borders separating PR and journalists on stories can be fluid and undefined, if not made otherwise. 

Those borders seem porous as ever at these sites (in fact, that's been Gorkana's mission since inception). For better or worse, depends on who butters your bread. Even then, time will tell. One thing's for certain: It's tricky to pull off the diversification of a customer base without diluting the services provided to each segment of one's customers. At least one group's bound to feel shunted aside in the mission creep. 

To wit, this is how Exponent describes Gorkana in its portfolio of companies section after tricking it out with Durrants and sentiment analysis firm Metrica: "The Gorkana Group is the leading PR planning, monitoring and evaluation business for corporates, PRs and Government which helps deliver efficient PR and marketing campaigns and manage corporate reputations.  It is THE network for journalists and PRs embedded in their workflow with analytics increasingly used at board level." 

To put it plainly, sites like Gorkana and Mediabistro need to take special care in their second acts to prove they truly can optimally help the very different masters they deem to serve: journalism and PR. 

Oh,... and social media and new media and publishing and marketing and advertising and sales and design and web development and television and...

It'd be interesting to hear from journalists on whether they feel as fully served by these two sites lately, compared to before each site widened the tent to include so many other customers. 

Addendum, June 10, 2013: CJR.com recently profiled outfits like Newsmodo, Ebyline and Pitch Me, which purport to manage freelancers for publishers for a fee; 30 percent per transaction in the case of Newsmodo, in addition to a subscription/access fee. Yeah. Wow. No kidding. 

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Robert Rauschenberg Kicks Ass

Addendum: We miss you RR.

I recently had the experience of attending the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective at the Met in New York where I live, and the Whitney Biennial on the same day. It offered an interesting, and telling, juxtaposition, regarding what the young bucks are up to and Bob’s seminal work of the 50s and 60s, through which he forged his own path from downtown salad days to American master.

Bob’s pieces felt so vital and vibrant as I experienced them at the Met, just bubbling forth with ideas, as does his current and continuing work. And post-stroke he's as prolific as ever, with that ever-present twinkle beaming through his pieces. What permeates his art for me is a winking embrace of life and its inherent funkiness. His cabinets of curiosities seem celebratory and evocative of the joy in the simple wonder of finding, living and making it all work, both in life and art. There’s a mischievous two-stepping and hamboning in his work, but it’s inclusive, as if he’s smiling through each piece saying “join me here." I’m very taken with it.

The kids at the biennial, meanwhile, seemed too overwhelmed by politics to elicit much beyond a forgotten moan. Not all, but a goodly portion of the work displayed seemed confused and angry, and thus, impotent. Perhaps it’s harder to shock people rather than engage them, or vice versa, or both. Don’t know, really, but it seems we’re at the perennial crossroads.

Anyway, while vacationing with my parents in Sanibel, Fla., I tried to snag an interview with Bob -- he lives on neighboring Captiva -- after successfully pitching a story to an editor friend at the New York Press who said she could place a piece that would be a critical rendering of the New York art scene, both high and low and in between, hinged in part on a comparison of the Whitney Biennial and the retrospective of Bob’s work at the Met -- an interview with Bob, hopefully included. As luck would have it, I happened to meet a waitress who, when asked, said her friend worked as one of Bob's art assistants. So I garnered a fax number to which I was told to send my pitch, and after battling (and wanting to beat and destroy) the disaffected non-working fax machine in our condo, I finally got the damn thing through to Bob and his crew.

Well, I received a call a few hours later, around happy hour on a Friday, and, as luck would not have it, I received the partial bad news: Bob was turning me down. His assistant, after mentioning that my fax machine was messed up, said that Bob apologizes but he loathes formal interviews, and he's had to do so many lately. She said he'd been doing them seemingly non-stop for awhile and would have to continue in a week in New York and then off to Europe for more of same. But, she said, let me read you what he told me. She said that, he said, my pitch was "one of the most creative he's ever received," and,... she said, 'he said to tell you': "You don't need me, Shane. You get it."

Well being turned down in this way was not so bad. It made me happy just to get the message through to Bob that I think his work is so valuable and good for the soul.

So, here's to ya Bob Rauschenberg. Keep doing great work, man. Salut!

And hell, I'll pester him again when things aren't so hectic: I need an art piece, and though he doesn't really need me, it'd be an honor if he would play protagonist in my think-piece.

But my advice to everyone is to go check out Robert Rauschenberg's work wherever and whenever it's on display, he's good for you. A true American master, he'll brighten your experience.

Post-script: So many of the young bucks are overprivileged pricks, seems anyway. I mean, I'm an empathetic guy and all -- my prior comment notwithstanding -- and not all of the new young bloods suck, and I don't care whether you have money or not, but,... so much of the current art scene leaves me at wit's end. I mean, irony's a head-game, after all, not a lasting feeling, right? It's, at most, a fleeting uncourageous muscle-spasm. But it's that which it seems a lot of these young folks covet, and, assumably, longevity, but through honing vacuous sarcastic tossed-off visual witticisms, over and over again. That which might attain a second's play at some overstuffed publicist's orgy, or some similar expensive waste of time. But it all seems to want to sag us back into the dull humming depressive eunich-nature of the modern lifestyle, or maybe, in its finest hour, gurgle a bit of acid reflux up into our mouths. Hmm, yummy. Mostly, this new young art, just sucks. Take this as a shot across the bow to GET CREATIVE! you young, disaffected over-precious little pretty things.

My failed pitch:

Dear Sir, Madam,

I want to interview Bob Rauschenberg for an article in the New York Press. ?*&^vamp;$, an editor at the New York Press has accepted my pitch for a piece that would be a critical rendering of the New York art scene, both high and low and in between, hinged in part on a comparison of the Whitney Biennial and the retrospective of Bobs work at the Met and an interview with Bob hopefully included.

I've always been delighted by Bob's work, his sculpture-paintings, the combines. But I recently had the experience of attending the Rauschenberg retrospective at the Met in New York where I live, and the Whitney Biennial on the same day. It offered an interesting, and telling, juxtaposition, regarding what the young bucks are up to and Bob's seminal work of the 50s and 60s, through which he forged his own path from downtown salad days to American master.

Bob's pieces felt so vital and vibrant as I experienced them at the Met, just bubbling forth with ideas, as does his current and continuing work. What permeates his art for me is a winking embrace of life and its inherent funkiness. His cabinets of curiosities seem celebratory and evocative of the joy in the simple wonder of finding, living and making it all work, both in life and art. There's a mischievous two-stepping and hamboning in his work, but its inclusive, as if he's smiling through each piece saying join me here. I'm very taken with it.

The kids at the biennial, meanwhile, seem too overwhelmed by politics to elicit much beyond a forgotten moan. Not all, but a goodly portion of the work displayed seemed confused and angry, and thus, impotent. Perhaps it's harder to shock people rather than engage them, or vice versa, or both. Don't know, really, but it seems were at the perennial crossroads.

Anyway, Id like to tease Bob out on New York and art and his life with both, but also, interview him in his Captiva studio, perhaps watch him work, or chat with him while he's in the surroundings of craft and home. I expect to blow out a feature from my conversation with Bob, as well, in addition to the New York-centric piece, if he accepts an interview on any of these terms. It could be timed to the Met show, his current projects, whatever he's jazzed about now.

Logistics: Im staying in Sanibel, so I could easily drive over to Captiva to meet him, but it would have to occur sometime between today and Sunday, April 9, as I leave for New York early on Monday. Or, we could work to set up an interview when Bob's in New York. I live and work in Alphabet City as a freelance writer/reporter/editor. Either way, please let me know, I can send clips upon request.

Thanks very much for your time, and please respond if any of this sounds good;

Cheers sincerely,

How To Take Up a Whole Day Typing What's Below When I Should Have Been Working

This was written to Brian Lehrer of WNYC regarding the idiotic bombast over the Dubai Ports World trying to finalize a deal to buy New York ports facilities, when much of America's ports' operations are already owned or run by foreign-domiciled companies. This was the last straw for me in allowing the pimps whoring the word "terror" all over the hype-machine to try to rule every waking moment of our lives. This is the day I quit. I simply quit this needless cluttering of my time, the day I ceased thinking anyone could rise above the soulless political calculus to actually make equitable decisions. But I'd like to thank our parliament of street hustlers for helping me forgo the political discourse as a noxious roar of flatulence and utter waste of my time. Kudos.

Brian,

The thick-headed reaction to the fact that the UAE is doing ports business in New York is one more dreadful example of how some of us in the U.S., whether puffed up politicians or riled-up, over-frightened citizens, are ceding themselves to all things deemed "terrorism" or risk thereof. To base every decision we make whole or even half hog on the spector of terror is to cede to it, simply, and is no way to live nor operate in the world. In effect, it enables disaffected cave-dwelling fascists to wag all of our dogs, and raises the spector that we're turning into same. Just to pique the folks who are so taken aback that the U.S. or New York would cinch a deal with a foreign power or firm known to reside in a country with a minority population of spurious characters and criminals, they should answer the following question: What other firms and governments are doing business in New York with similar M.O.s that could also reek havoc upon us?!!!!" Oh my gosh...The answer should send great jolts of fear coursing through the overtaxed nervous systems of every New Yorker, as such transactions are done everyday, and they include every nation in the world, including the U.S.: The spurious are everywhere, cross every boundary of race, nationality, country, language, religion, dress and aversion or lack thereof to asparagus.

All firms with a majority of Arabic-speaking staff are not terrorists, just as a majority of Americans are not delusional, silly tourists. What we're dealing with here is a deficiency of perceptions and context, with reality skewered and skewed to the fun-house mirror. May we speculate about the likelihood that local politicians are using this ports deal to look tough ahead of mid-term elections, in just one example of a time-honored travesty in which reality becomes increasingly distorted as poll time nears? Hmmm, just a ventured guess... Some of the shittiest, most dangerous legislation gets written in such reactionary times.

Where, pray tell, are all the outraged voices now that part of the venerable New York Stock Exchange, that oh-so-American institution, looks increasingly like it will be partially owned by, gulp, the French? (Amsterdam-based bourse Euronext is the result of the merger of the Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam stock exchanges; and an NYSE bid for the whole package is pending at press time.) It's part of our national infrastructure for Grasso's sake! Oh Mother Mary!

But let me offer a simple solution to this ports situation: The rational reaction would be to do the due diligence on the deal, and be done with it, or perhaps demand the company hire a U.S. or local expert on staff to act as security or background checker to vet the firm in its daily operations, which would show good faith on both sides. Do that, and then tell the loudmouths to shut up. Simple. Done. Sounds like a rational compromise in a complex, but free,... oh, I'm sorry -- aspiring to be free -- free market world, does it not? Maybe it goes too far. Well then, do the due diligence, distrust but verify, and be done with it.

This unfortunate ports and politics story, though, neatly sums up the problem we face in our reactions to the "terror" dilemma: That by enabling over-terrified citizens and the political hacks who feed their fears and seize on their naivete via the pendulum-swinging momentum 9-11 spurred toward protecting everyone from everything in what is essentially and always has been and always will be an uncertain world, we cede our ability to these same less-than-rational forces, which hold our hands as we yield our right to walk through our lives with any modicum of freedom, rationality, and self-control, enabling the tradeoff, or loss, at least in some degree, of the ways in which we would otherwise choose to live our lives in exchange that the government ensures our physical security, which, when one thinks about it, is essentially impossible. So that's the question. It's not really "what's worth protecting," but "what's worth not losing?"

So pegging to the UAE ports deal a terror risk so high we must refuse to do business with "them," is to show subservience to a fuzzy and bogus dogma that would have us close our ports in these apparent global and "free" markets to anyone but firms with no Arab ties, to put in bluntly. By allowing such overreaching, unctuous reactions to run rampant, we forfeit reason and our self-control to the counterfeit cannons of our enemies. Meaning, we risk taking on all the same jingoistic, clash-of-civilizations bunk and xenophobic rhetoric and malformed mindset of the reason-deficient boobs who believe killing people with different opinions is God's will. Losing ourselves in this way, to those who would have us believe that this is now the way of the world, poses real dangers. Foremost, the ports tempest conflates "UAE" or "Arab" with "terrorist," just as Europeans sometimes conflate "Americans" with "silly tourists," to repeat a prior analogy. The whole thing is making New York, and New Yorkers, of which I am proudly one, look like a bunch of muckering bumpkins, versus the nuanced, smart, most-savvy-in-the-world we know ourselves to be. This willingness to yield our self-control and really, our souls, dare I say, in various immeasurable portions, to loudmouth politicians and by proxy, to the very terrorists to whom we're trying to refuse, defuse, and thwart, the antitheses of who we claim we are, or imagine ourselves to be, is to jump off the bridge because they said so.

Sure, it's actually the politicians who are making political hay of the day out of this, so those succumbing to their spin can be forgiven (even though it pains me greatly to empathize with P.T. Barnum's braying suckers); the issues involved are not without complexity. But smarten up, will ya? -- those succumbing to this noxious spin.

Because there IS a middle ground here. Like due diligence and vetting. Yet it's just such "a middle ground" that the politicians and self-proclaimed wagers of the "war on terror" have, and are, increasingly stealing from us. Whether knee-jerk, premeditated or not, those deeming themselves our "protectors" (read: "drunk with power") are too often too willing to void nuance from the rhetoric of a debate that's so direly needed for the extremely complex, multi-issued decision-making that needs to take place to solve the difficult dilemmas we face. The subsumption of reasoned, intelligent dialogue to overheated political hackdom and bombast is much like the terrorists we're seeking to defeat would have it, meaning it's dogmatic to the core. It seems 9-11, a hateful, murderous irrational action, has inspired a reaction that's far enough outside the realm of reason that it has us playing foot-servant to our enemies, in effect, jumping everytime they say boo. It's also allowing some of us to feel enough confidence to make empiric decries -- with terror a proxy for everything -- to create a silence where there needs the most debate, a silence that's deafening, and, if isn't a tilt toward tyrrany or weakening or dogma, then I'm not sure what is. One would not be incorrect in presuming that in the aforementioned I was referring to the Administration's (read: Cheney's, Addington's) decision to turn the NSA's ear and data-mining prowess on American citizens while gagging Congress' "gang of eight," in the meanwhile, from knowledge and debate and therefore the constitutionally demanded Congressional oversight of the executive branch that, critics say, a would-be King has deemed unimportant, in the context of deciding to give FISA an ass-fucking, in the name of fighting all things "terrorism," and all terrorists, of which there is assuredly one behind every bush, garbage pale and Starbucks counter. One wouldn't be considered too much of a thoughtless punter or downright boob, if he or she were to wager that in the days or hours after 9-11, every mode of domestic communication, and particularly in major cities, especially New York and D.C.., were lit-up for listening and tapped by whatever agency had the capability. What don't we know, after all? But alas, only silence.

But why not solve the problem where it starts?: Secular politicos in Arab countries need to stop cynically thwarting their citizens from bootstrapping themselves out of educational and economic poverty just to keep power and wealth among a small set of uber-sultans -- the politicos themselves -- who have cast their citizenry off to the bidding of wahhabist, fascist clerics, who create suicide-bombing terrrorists like factories spitting out Volkswagens, though we all hope in less numbers. This is a power-sharing arrangment that the U.S. needs to demand Middle East and South Asian nations stop. These rulers must cease this tradeoff of securing establishment riches via citizen mind-control immediately, or else face consequences, so that the appropriate avenues and opportunities can be created to end this cycle of desperation, despondence, violence and hatred, for which these cast-off citizens are stuck and predisposed. One argument may in fact be to bar economic deals (including the port transaction), until countries deemed not doing enough to clean up their fundamentalist messes, do do enough and go far to keep doing it. Yet that's not how the opponents of the ports deal are framing their argument.

But allowing these clerics to continue to cloak themselves in God's will to brainwash the naive, uneducated, spoonfed and hopeless citizenry who otherwise would be protesting their governments in the streets so the political establishment can continue to lavish themselves with the spoils of the countries they rule is a true crime, a devil's deal of proxy control that must end. That's the real war, in fact. It's a hearts and minds operation that, because it threatens the political establishment in these countries, has been less than successful.

The furor over the political cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad shows just how distracted the muslim masses are, and continue to be, and just how successful those who hold power over them have focused their frustations elsewhere, beyond their borders, away from those who truly keep them disenfranchised, those who do little to nothing to mitigate their economic and educational misery and impoverishment: their own governments. Of course, foreign policy wags will tell you it's a predicament that needs to be solved from the inside, by an educated, establishment player, lest those protests in the streets lend themselves down the path to a toppling that embraces fundamentalism, something truly to be avoided by anyone interested in civil rights and a marketplace of ideas, and security. So it's likely that for security reasons, the U.S. is propping up these same governments who thwart or distract much of the will -- or at least keep it bottled or aimed elsewhere -- of their own citizens. (Pakistan, in all it's scary complexity, comes to mind.) Hence the glacial pace we're on. At least the cartoons started the conversation, though. That these drawings sparked so much violence speaks to how irrational and distracted much of the Arab street has become from being stuck in the mire and the funhouse mirror so long by those that rule them. And by "those that rule them," I mean their own nation's rulers, the rulemaking and systems under which they're governed, who have have made domestic choices, set domestic policy and created domestic frameworks for which no outsider can be justifiably blamed.

Yet it must be realized that we too, the citizens of the U.S., are in our own fun-house mirror when it comes to the issues of "terror" and domestic and foreign policy. But that critical debate, that crucial middle ground, has been taken from us, by political hacks for sure, but by us, in the end. This is a dangerous void that needs to fill and remain filled with voices. It's vitally important to understand, that the world is NOT different, it's the same as it always has been. Meaning, there are always people who will resort to violence and lash out, have been since the time of the caveman: We just got hit really, really hard, on 9-11, by cavemen who have seemingly been left to "thrive" in the 21st century. What is not said enough is that too many Americans make the fundamental mistake of believing that the world truly is fundamentally changed, made forever different by a group of fundamentialists, a gaggle of disaffected men hiding in the dusty borderlands between a failed state and a deeply flawed one; that we need to give up certain of our deeply held notions, our freedoms and rights in effect, because of these men (because they are predominantly men), to continually and forever fight the uncertainty that there are other men out there, or other disaffected people who may want to hurt us. That we must battle what is essentially continual, perpetual uncertainty, when uncertainty is the only truly certain thing there is in life.

Well, this is no way to live. Agreeing to live under fundamental change inspired by fundamentalists in a so-called "war" against said uncertainty which has no end in sight, seems a tyrrany none of us should be willing to endure.



Re: The "were we misled?" show as you moderated Brian, briefly:

Also, look at Iraq as a proxy war, at least for a moment: First, look on the map. Iraq's in the middle of the part of the world in which the 9-11 terrorists came from. Venture that WMD was an excuse and Iraq was an easy target. Most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, yet we didn't declare war on Saudi Arabia. That seemed a non-starter. The only rational force response to the attacks that 9-11 triggered which seems fairly readily apparent was when the U.S. military was sent to Afghanistan, a country which harbored and provided training ground for these terrorists. So back to the root of the problem: while it's the hope of many that at least some U.S. attache made it clear to the Saudi rulers, citing the inordinate amount of Saudi citizens who were 9-11 hijackers, that if they don't clean up their fundamentalist wahhabist mess that led to this travesty, they'll become the 51st state, such a story has yet to be told, if it happened at all. So where is the pressure? The fact remains, Saudia Arabia needs to be pressured to stop and shut down these idiot clerics and their insane asylums, to stem the problem at its root.

But look again at the map, Afghanistan seems less than centrally located, or not enough in the fertile crescent, to achieve multiple policy goals via a single action, goals of which are all pegged on influencing policy in the Middle East overall, which the Administration capitulates now, but not prior to the war, they are after. Perhaps it seems then that the Administration went, again consulting the map, to Iraq to establish a beach-head to influence Middle East policy, just as the U.S. political apparatus deeply involved itself in Latin America during the Cold War to ensure governments toed the line by staying center-right and non-socialist, which surely continues to some degree today, as it did then, via covert or non-direct funding, or in the extreme, via the support of loathsome dictators, or via proxy wars, and sometimes all of the aforementioned, all at once. Hell, the U.S. armed UBL to fight the Soviets. So perhaps then, same story, different part of the globe. The aforementioned theory it should be noted, is one preferred by a wonkish set certainly not devoid of their own agendas and politics.

But say the unwillingness and inability to be honest about this, to tell the American people the "true" reasons for the war, that the aforementioned is accurate. It may be baffling, but it goes to political expediency. That is, to gain majority support for a war with a country that doesn't seem to have committed or be linked in any way to the crime triggering the fight -- 9-11 -- the Administration was forced to sell it by claiming some opposite of the former, and WMD, both of which, it appears, were inaccurate assertions. Did they know that and say otherwise? History may show. Suspicions, even with maps, are not facts. One should never assume, just as they should never lie with people's lives in the balance.

No one likes being lied too, or falsely accused, and one should accept neither. Dishonesty does not stand in a country based on freedom and the rule of law. While hoping that public officials will be honest is like spitting in the wind or swimming upstream in a shitstorm, the only thing keeping the republic together is holding those with power to the proverbial fire to make sure they do tell the truth, otherwise tyrrany, or some unsavory degree of it, reins. So say the Administration has treated U.S. citizens on a need-to-know basis in all this. If true, its critics will point out, it's only part of an all-encompassing M.O. in how this group has been seen to comport itself, wield power and chose to govern. A Straussian, if not a Faustian bargain. Perhaps.

I think the problem of the "misled?" debate was that everyone kept getting mired in the minutaie of puzzle pieces and angles and political hackdom, as well as making sweeping assumptions, to be blind of the forest but for the trees. It left the debate fractious, with lots of premium venting, but without moving the dialogue forward, much. One thing I'm truly grateful for, though, is that there is able to be such a debate, at all. It's unfortunate, however, that this view is not held by all, and particularly by those wielding power.

International Motorcycle Show in NYC

Check out the "Toad 'L Package," a double engine Art Deco number customized from an '87 Harley, the creation of one Mike Roach from Nova Scotia. I covered the bike show in NYC Jan. 20 - Jan. 22, and this was just one of many pieces of rumbling art-ware that blew me away. Definitely the most inspired entry under what Big Twin Customs was calling its grass-roots effort to promote custom builders who lack recognition outside their locales.

The show really knocked me out: It seems a great time to be a biker. Or, maybe it's always a great time to be a biker. Still, the fusion of art and power pouring out of custom garages and brand name shops these days is amazing. Such creativity by the ton deserves, well... credit. Perhaps the real test will be if this experience turns me into a biker -- a lobbying effort my visiting Uncle subtly engaged in, handing me materials to sign up for local cycle safety courses: I cannot say that I'm not intrigued. Look out.

http://www.forbesautos.com/news/headlines/2006/january/fadc012506-cycleshow.html

Blogging, Me Likeee

Nothing like waiting until a trend is so overexposed the mere mention of the word,.. uhhh... don't say it, wait! ...ehhh...

"blog,... blog, blog, blog, blog, blog!..."

stands the hair up, tweaks the ears like sharpened pencils were being jammed into them, and buzzes my teeth as if I brushed them with Desenex. That would depict the sickening embarassment and general ickiness I feel hearing every talking head and their long-suffering mothers buffalooning that... uhhh... please... no...

"blogging..."

that blogging..., children, blogging will change our very fucked up world. AND do it with less calories!

Now CEO attendees at Davos can say nothing in so many different ways,... in a blog! However unfortunate, they do. Well, why not? And uh, me too.

It upsets me, obviously. I tend to denigrate what I later fall in love with, though. No, I made that up - a popular sport lately.

Truth is, I like blogs. What freedom. What loosening of the chains this text-based flatulence allows one. It pleases, dearies,... pleases me like french fries. Oh yes...

Tremoring, snarky, cardboard top-hatted entrances aside, I've determined I'm squatting on a gold mine: myself! I think this Internet thing might take off one day,... man. Really.

So spending way (way) too much time at home (awww!) with the dial set to blog, might as well, might as well a'eady. Giddy wi' it.

So Blog,... blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

The blog is dead, long live the blog.

Mike, your fault. All three of you.