Quotidienne

I am very tired now, because I have gone to three conferences in a row. My friend Anne calls this the "information uptake" phase, and it always seems to go on forever, and it is very confusing and frustrating, especially when you are working on a campaign for an industry that is dying in front of your eyes. This sense of panic that a lot of us have is sheer nonsense. I keep telling people who are working on the journalism campaign that never once in the history of America has there been a product that appeals to millions of people, and the absence of someone to sell it. The question with journalism is not which business model. The really really hard part is figuring out how to reconstruct its ethos as a public service profession.

Speaking of panic, apparently there is this retro WWII era poster that is a huge hit all over Britain right now:



Millions of British terrified by the economic crisis are putting them up in their homes. What's really hilarious about it is the history: there were 3 posters made - this was the worst one, actually saved for the event of massive bombing and carnage.

From Barter Books:

At the end of August 1939 three designs went into production with an overall print budget of 20,600 pounds for five million posters. The first poster, of which over a million were printed, carried a slogan suggested by a civil servant named Waterfield. Using the crowns of George VI as the only graphic device, the stark red and white poster read 'Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory'. A similar poster, of which around 600,000 were issued, carried the slogan 'Freedom is in Peril'. But the third design, of which over 2.5 million posters were printed, simply read 'Keep Calm and Carry On'.

The first two designs were distributed in September 1939 and immediately began to appear in shop windows, on railway platforms, and on advertising hoardings up and down the country. But the 'Keep Calm' posters were held in reserve, intended for use only in times of crisis or invasion.

Maybe I can find a copy of the one about cheerfulness and courage instead?

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I am one month into DC habitation and I am fascinated. The cherry blossoms are like a gift; they are like pink frosting on the marble and concrete. It is an astonishingly international place, and now that I have a month before I go back on the road, I am going to spend my time immersing myself in African film and Turkish music.

The weird concrete blocks of the interior of the metro (see below) just make me think of "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd.


It is a former slave city. That is very disturbing. There is no working class. There is the professional class, and the service class. And the service class doesn't have suffrage.

However, there is so much to hope about. So much. If grassroots organizations like the Main Street Project can be telling the FCC what to do, then things are looking up.

The GhostNet story freaked me out a little. Not so much in what it said (which is not new) but the possible ramifications and implications of nationalistic responses to massive spy threats in the Internet. I'm sure I am not the only person worrying about this but I haven't had time to search for "GhostNet" in the deep well of brilliant, incisive writing that is Twitter.

And why Viet Nam?