This evening, I watched the Frontline episode Dangerous Straits about relations  between China and the USA.  I am surprised how up-to-date it is – referring to Sept 11.  I should not have been surprised, however, given the fact that George W. Bush is in China right now -- making the documentary timely.

Looking at Lloyd’s pictures of Princeton reminds me of my own visit to Princeton three years ago.  At that point, my friend Lindi was at the Institute for Advanced Studies, my friend Dan was working for Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, my friend Randy, a post-doc at U Penn, and my friend Dorothy, a professor at Wesleyan University.  Princeton was lovely but I found it to be too quiet.  “Where were all the people?” I kept asking.

40 Computer Scientists Abandon a Print Journal, Preferring Its Online Competitor (CHE). “In another sign of scientists' discontent with costly traditional journals, at least half the editorial board of a journal on artificial intelligence has resigned to join a   competing journal that is distributed free online.”

Amy Wohl. Life On The Internet: Could Blogging Assist KM? Another article on knowledge management and blogging – looks good.  (Thanks to Dave Winer for the link.)  I have been looking for a short, focused description of KM and how blogging may fit together.

It’s nice to be blogging so much right now – but it’s also important to know that other people have experienced and will continue to experience blog burnout (or just a time to be quiet) at various moments. (I saw reference to this CamWorld article in reference to Doc Searls’ current blogging hiatus.   He writes:  “In Quaker meetings one doesn't speak unless "one can improve on the silence." Maybe now is a good time to test the concept.” 

Current Events

Is Stephanie Salter correct when she writes, “AS LONG AS WE STILL HAVE IT, I'm going to make the most of the First Amendment: What we are doing in, above, and to Afghanistan is short-sighted, counterproductive and immoral.”?  I’m looking for an article which is a strong, short rebuttal to her arguments. 

I’m considering donating money for Afghan refugee relief as suggested by Jon Carroll in his A modest proposal for helping.  It’s probably also a good time to donate blood since I imagine the lineups are not so long now

I’ve become a regular reader of Jon Carroll’s column in the SF Chronicle these days.  In today’s piece, he writes:  “THE REAL WAR is a battle of information, and we are losing that badly. Where are the Arab speakers in the government, explaining our position on Al- Jazeera? Where are the American imams reminding people what the Koran says about suicide, and the treatment of women, and the value of peace? “

As I’ve been trying to be more systematic in my efforts to formulate my own thoughts about current events and figure out a plan of action for myself, I’ve been looking for reliable sources of information as well as websites or articles that help me frame the right questions (and that present competing views when there are different views.)  I haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for yet, but the resource list at google has been helpful to me so far.  At the very least, it’s led me to the SilconValley.com blog on Sept 11, which strikes me as a source of very high quality articles from all over the Web (and therefore, perhaps the world).  In fact, I see that the first article listed there today (The Best Propaganda: Victory by Claudia Rosett (WSJ)) is perhaps a corrective to the view stated in Carroll’s column of today.)  She writes, “Forget about winning hearts and minds. The real battlefield is . . . the battlefield.”