Bush's Landmark Conservation Event [!?!]

Last month, Bush announced a new national monument in a remote part of Hawaii. This string of islands, atolls, reefs and shoals is home to more than 7000 species and has been referred to as a 'biological jewel'. Protecting this 1,200 mile long area from fishing and major tourism is the most significant thing Bush has done for the environment in his presidency and is something he will certainly try to hang his hat on. With his standard, every man's delivery, he told reporters, "this is a big deal."

Bush saw a documentary that French filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau made about this area and was inspired to get the region protected. The right story telling at the right place and time can be a pretty powerful thing and this example is one that I think is very inspiring. However, I can't help but feel that is just another case in which Bush is doing some major PR work. After all, this new protection will prevent a total of 8 fishing boats from entering the region and keep away the very small number of visitors who actually have the resources to go to such a remote destination. That being said, this is now the biggest marine reserve in the country.

Check PBS's site for an excellent video featuring excepts from the documentary and interviews with Cousteau himself:
Here

[Images used in this post were taken from www.news.bbc.co.uk.]

Water Taxi Music [Original]

This is the story of a guy who started an excellent summer party series on the banks of the East River in Long Island City, Queens. The Manhattan skyline looms in the background as people from all walks of life get together to have a great time. Help! This video is not done! This weekend I'm planning on attending the party at the water taxi beach and I need friends to come along and take photos. I'm going to use these photos to make an excellent montage to close the video segment (there is extra black at the end with music for this purpose). Come join me!

Across America in 7 Days: Episode 1 -- Upstate NY [Original]

This is episode 1 of a short series detailing a cross-country road trip from NYC to LA. We brought several cameras with us and captured all points of interest as we crossed. This is set to the original music of my uncle, Chip Wilson, a New Orleans based guitarist who we spent an evening with on the first night of the trip. The music was recorded in a cabin at Elk Lake in the Adirondack wilderness. If you like this video, please click through to current.tv and vote for it. By giving it your 'greenlight', the video may gain enough support to be shown on television. Thanks!

Goldilocks - BP Global Warming Video

LiveScience is a website put out by the Imaginova Corporation. It is a bit like a web version of the Discovery Channel -- they collect and produce a variety of science related content, including videos. The link below will take you to a video sponsored by BP, an energy company that is trying it's best to be green (or to at least seem that way). I hope they are putting money towards green research and not just green PR. In any case, this video is a nice explaination of the greenhouse effect. Check it out.
http://www.livescience.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=GoldilocksGreen

The Canary is Dead - #1 on current.tv

This is an amazing and very scary piece. It is right up the alley of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Based on user voting, it is currently rated as the number 1 video uploaded to the Current TV website.

The Future of NASA

The New York Times picked up on a story that has the employees of NASA shaking their heads. The Bush administration has changed the wording of NASA's mission statement so that the focus of the organization is on space exploration and not the protection and understanding of our home planet.

To me, this is similar to what has historically gone on with the war on drugs. It is better PR for the government to focus on large and attention grabbing events, such as large drug busts or moon landings, then to address deep and complicated problems.

Check out the Times article:
Here

Tail Wag

Chris Anderson, Wired magazine editor and author of recently released book 'The Long Tail,' joins Al Gore and Malcom Gladwell in the in the club of guys who look at large amounts of somewhat obvious yet scary data and then make it all seem interesting and relevant to the masses. Beyond this macro level comparison, Gore is linked to Anderson because his new company, Current TV, is responding to the media landscape that Anderson is so complellingly profiling in his new book. Anderson is also linked to Gladwell in a more direct way, calling the author of 'Blink' and the 'Tipping Point,' his "favorite writer."

While you may or may not love this popular brand of quasi-intellectualism, Anderson's website/blog - http://www.thelongtail.com is worth a look. His statistics are jawdropping and paint a picture that every major media company would love to ignore yet can't. We're living in a new world and by my writing this and by you reading this, we're building it up. And I love it. Long live the long tail!