I draw cartoons for The Los Angeles Times about issues related to California and the Southland (metro Los Angeles).
This week: Up to 20% of the personal income growth in the state of California could be attributed to the initial public offering of stock by Facebook. So what’s the other 80%?
I’m too busy to write bonus commentary this week, aside from saying that it’s pretty strange whom we decide to allot Godlike power to in this country.
A soldier serving in Afghanistan was killed while Skyping with his wife. (We don’t know whether he was shot or died of some other cause.) How will your death be live-streamed?
The events in Egypt have shown that social networking is now regarded as a human right by our State Department. I suppose it should be. But it’s a little disappointing when when they act disgusted by people losing their ability to tweet after funding the guy who has been locking them in prison for thirty years.
Twitter and Facebook never need to hire PR flacks–the American media are happy to endlessly focus discussion on them. Sure, these tools were used to help organize in Egypt, but I tend to side with Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article dispelling the “Twitter Effect” during the massive protests in Iran over their disputed election. I don’t see them as being necessary in Egypt either.
Pundits tend to forget that somehow people have manage to organize, take to the streets and overthrow governments for ages without the aid of iPhones. Egyptians didn’t need to “like” democracy on Facebook or tweet their outrage. It wasn’t hard to find the location and time of the event when people were pouring through the streets. It was time to put down the phone and join them.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook and I’ll let you know when the revolution starts and where the after party is at.
The events in Egypt have shown that social networking is now regarded as a human right by our State Department. I suppose it should be. But it’s a little disappointing when when they act disgusted by people losing their ability to tweet after funding the guy who has been locking them in prison for thirty years.
Twitter and Facebook never need to hire PR flacks–the American media are happy to endlessly focus discussion on them. Sure, these tools were used to help organize in Egypt, but I tend to side with Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article dispelling the “Twitter Effect” during the massive protests in Iran over their disputed election. I don’t see them as being necessary in Egypt either.
Pundits tend to forget that somehow people have manage to organize, take to the streets and overthrow governments for ages without the aid of iPhones. Egyptians didn’t need to “like” democracy on Facebook or tweet their outrage. It wasn’t hard to find the location and time of the event when people were pouring through the streets. It was time to put down the phone and join them.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook and I’ll let you know when the revolution starts and where the after party is at.
