EGC Clambake for November 4, 2005

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for November 4, 2005.

This episode is almost entirely an interview with Clayton Cubitt about his experiences with the Operation Eden weblog and taking photographs of the hurricane survivors of the Gulf Coast region; I play a song from the Caesar Brothers and that’s it.

This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at iPod Observer and Reel Reviews! Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. For the month of November, $25 of your purchase goes to the Mercy Corps.

This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0.

Links mentioned in this episode:

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EGC Clambake for October 26, 2005

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for October 26, 2005.

I talk about and read from Clayton Cubitt’s Operation Eden; I play a song from Steadman; I talk about Dicks and Janes podcast and Getting a Leg Up; I play a song from Jonathan Coulton; I discuss Stephen Hill’s manifesto; I play clips from Lawrence Lessig on This Week in Tech and Paul Graham on IT Conversations; I play a song by The Arts and Sciences; later taters.

This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at iPod Observer and Reel Reviews! Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package.

This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0.

Links mentioned in this episode:

PlayPlay

East of Eden

If you’ve been following Clayton Cubitt’s story of his family’s survival, there is a moment of hope finally. It’s not a happy ending, but what he calls “a happy end of a beginning.”

I talk about the power of connection of the internet, about the positivity of the connections I make through the podcast. Here is a similar sentiment, stated by Clayton so powerfully that it brought tears to my eyes.

And there it is, for now. The internet saved my family. My camera saved my family. I’m a high school dropout, but my writing saved my family. If this had happened ten years ago, my photos, my writing, wouldn’t have saved anybody, because nobody would have seen it. It wasn’t on CNN. It wasn’t on the broadcast networks. It wasn’t even on PBS. It was on a plain, small, free website, and that’s the only reason Elizabeth saw it, and brought her family into the effort.

Katrina has shown me some things. She’s shown me that the American government is unable to protect anything we hold dear. She’s shown me that the American people are an amazing, giving, tough, resourceful, huge people, and that they’re not being represented fairly by the current class of small-hearted politicians and lazy bureaucrats. She’s shown me that people around the world care about us after all, despite our government. She’s shown me that it’s not about FEMA, it’s not about the Red Cross, that it’s about amazing families like Elizabeth and Kenny’s family in North Carolina. Like I’ve said before, it’s just about people like you and me, on our own, together.

Amen.