About the ongoing Wikipedia on Katrina, media blogger Dan Gilmor writes:
By many standards, the Wikipedia entry on Hurricane Katrina is an example of journalism. It doesn’t have first-hand accounts, true. But it’s the kind of background piece — actually, a much better one — that newspapers routinely run with their news stories. Amazing work.
Have you admired other Wikipedia entries?
Update [2005-8-30 0:48:8 by susanhu]: CNN / AP: 50 DIE IN MISSISSIPPI : Death Toll Rising + Tens of thousands will be homeless for months.
DemfromCt helped create a great one on avian flu — FluWikie.
Do some people save entries? I’ve always been curious about that because I’ve noticed that in many threads there are sort of battles between different ideological camps.. just check out Noam Chomsky.
You should have seen how many times the G.W. Bush biography had changed before the administrators finally put a “freeze” on the content so that the background discussions could be argued out before any changes were made.
I think there are something like 50 pages (maybe more?) just on the comments/arguments/disputes over content for that page.
It is almost the same on every page that is a political biography. It must be a challenge to proveide a balanced perspective on content on that bush page whith the kind of information available! lol
Wikipedia is bar none my favorite office pass time sans Google Earth
World Book should take notice quick… They for one don’t include up to date Hyperlinks and only really smart oompa loompas can write for them (I think…)
My faves so far are: Quantum Immortality, Stan Lee, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard…
Wow, Ronald. So many great links … have checked out Google Earth just now. Had read about it but hadn’t seen it presented in this detail. Incredible.
Susan if you haven’t downloaded it yet do yourself a big favor and get it (it’s free and more fun than grand theft auto)… What other programs will let you look at people’s backyards in perth, australia? (well, their backyard a year ago or so)
They even have Google Moon… If you zoom in too far you see a big block of cheese =)
At this point Google has earned Jedi status with me (hopefully they don’t sell out too much, i have heard that an-uld owns quite a bit of g-stock)
I zoomed into Crawford, TX… Jus to see if I could spot bush with a crack-pipe in his backyard on one of those satellite sites…
I managed to find where the “triangular piece of property” was on Prairie Chapel Rd. where “Camp Casey 1” was! (I think?) lol
Camp Casey 1
and apparently this is Bush’s Ranch (funny thing about this one is it puts a big red “loading” border around it and then loads an old b&w image… A couple weeks ago it would show the area then loaded a huge “file not found” image blocked off in white
I was looking with a different satellite view provider.
Funny thing was that there was a lot of space on it there that looked like it had been replaced because the images just wouldn’t match up properly. I assumed it was the bush ranch area.
From a security stand point I guess it makes sense.
If you do want to read personal experience of Katrina (and other hurricanes) I just diaried this here and cross-posted (with silly poll) at Kos.
off-topic but have to write this….I just watched the Tucson news on Bush’s trip to Arizona today. Now, Tucson is a university town, but we also have a huge air force base and Raytheon plant. And the local tv station is called KGUN. So it’s a pretty conservative media, just to give some background as to why the report tonight stunned me.
They showed a few seconds of Bush shaking hands with some smiling people in his hand-picked audience in Phoenix, mentioned that he talked about Medicare and Iraq and Katrina but did not show video of him speaking. Then the anchor said "and these days protests follow Bush wherever he goes," and they showed a Gold Star mother holding a sign as Bush’s car went by near Phoenix. Then the camera continued to pan the street of protesters, while the anchor commented on how someone was dressed in a chicken suit in order to protest "what they see as the president’s weakness in not meeting with the families."
Finally, there was an amazing two-minute scene of three "raging grannies" meeting with Congressman Raul Grijalva in Tucson, in order to discuss a congressional resolution to bring the troops home. And an interview with Grijalva where he talked about a "new mood" in the country questioning how long the Iraq war will go on.
This is the first time I’ve watched local news in a while, and for Tucson this was pretty amazing.
Great report by you! Glad to see that local news is giving more of the full story. A couple of Seattle’s stations are good, KING (NBC) in particular. Their short Iraq update segment is excellent.
I use the Wikipedia all the time — my first source of public domain information.
Search for “Stan Freberg.” That entry has been modified extensively, but I was the one who initiated it.
I’ve contributed to other entries, but none as extensively as that one.
This might be a bit off topic for this thread, but CNN just interviewed someone working in the hospital in New Orleans Parish, and the water is rising rapidly. It seems the levee has been breached. Thousands are still trapped in their attics. The water has risen to the second floor of the hospital and it is being evacuated. I’m really afraid for the people there. Have any of you heard any news of this?
I saw a scary photo in this morning’s paper from New Orleans, of two women swimming in water up to their necks through the city’s east side. I’m sure they weren’t the only ones.
People were expecting New Orleans to be washed away in the space of a morning… but this may be a slow-motion catastrophe.
yes I heard this too. They are going to try to evac them via the helo pad. I think it was Charity hosp if not mistaken. and Tulane is being evac’ed too.
I heard that the levee has been breached too and that the ppl are strickly adviced to stay away from that area. Water is still rising and they were trying to find out why, but thought it was the levee problem.