Lincoln's a Cool Customer on Health Care

Sen. Blanche Lincoln and I have done our fair share of conversating over the past few months. From card check to energy reform and in between, the Senator has always been good to call me back for an interview, and we've had many.

The headliner as of late, as you already well know, is what are we going to do about health care. Lincoln sits on the ever-powerful Senate finance committee that will be responsible for footing the bill, a bill that many are estimating is mighty steep, at over $1 trillion.

That's no chump change for anyone.

Lincoln has stated that she has no definitive stance on the issue, only the vague, tepid response that she is for "whatever it is that works," fulfilling all of the goals for all of the problems that there are or may be in the health care arena. That's a rather tall order.

So you can understand how ambitious it must be for her to say that she expects a health care bill next week, as everyone returns from the July 4th recess. To go from having no preference whatsoever, as she stated to me several times is her position, on a specific position — be it a public option, co-op, or any other option — to having some meat on the table will surely be something.

Actually, what it shows is that beneath the tame surface, there is a frenzy of activity in the legislative waters on health care. But with all of her weight being shifted equally, we have no idea how she'll land.

My guess — again, guess, mind you — is that we'll be presented with something remarkably similar if not identical to the public option proposed by President Obama, only reworded to fix the well-publicized collective aversion to the socialist-sounding moniker of "public option." I think Obama, a former Senator, will be able to make sure his goal is taken care of with a small, 100-person room full of his former colleagues, which as of yesterday, also happens to be a supermajority.

Cap-and-trade, a divisive bill that split the Democratic party down a rural fence, passed in the House, in no small part due to Obama's backing. It will die in the Senate, but the message is still clear.

Like Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe during the past legislative session, I think President Obama could be riding his popularity to the bank, nearly sweeping all of his legislative agenda points, any one of which would have been remarkable, but all of them? That's big time.

Sweet Sassy Molassy Look at How Far We've Come

Hang on guys, I'm getting a page. Is there another telephone in the bedroom that I might be able to use? Oh wait! Terry's got a car phone! Terry, give me your keys so I can start your car and use your car phone.

But how were you supposed to tweet?

Hankins v. Rutherford: Too Civil/Lacking of Bloodshed To Be Entertaining

The minor tremors about the Arkansas blogotwitterspheres today were regarding a column published by Arkansas Business publisher Jeff Hankins on the omnipresence of new media and the subsequent rebuttal by blogger Blake Rutherford of Blake's Sentient Bull Dozer.

Hankins says that media is now everywhere thanks to these meddling kids and their blogs and their twitters and their pop music. Rutherford retorts, "Yeah, so?"

In short, they seem to agree with one another about the viability and actuality of new media being on the prowl, but disagree on whether or not this is necessarily a causal "pitfall." Rutherchevy says that people have been spreading rumors and traditional news outlets have been getting it wrong for quite sometime, and to blame new media for those conventions is downright erroneous.

He also points out that it's a vast generalization to say that bloggers wouldn't correct themselves if they admittedly got a scoop wrong, which is true. But come to think of it, I don't see a lot of corrections made, unless it's regarding a source, quoted statement, or something else supplementary, rarely affecting the entire body of the post. But maybe the blogs I frequent are rarely wrong (ARKANSAS BLOGOSPHERE ELITISM! FIST PUMP!).

There's more agreeing going on here than not to really say this is a debate. As I say this, I'm hoping that a shirtless Hankins is storming down to the Bowen Law School, kicking open the door to Rutherford's law class to open a can in front of his students, ya know, to spice this narrative up a bit, but in case that doesn't pan out, it seems that both made good points about the whole state of affairs, without stomping each others' toes. Cue to the cheesy Full House electric guitar, denoting a valuable lesson to be learned.

Hankins is right: The media in its new form is now everywhere, unfettered by the old media's rules and governance. Rutherford is right: That doesn't mean that old media is infallible, not that Hankins was claiming it to be.

I actually spoke on an SPJ panel about the rift or symbiosis of old and new media. I really believe that the cream will rise to the top, meaning credible bloggers are more likely to be carried on and be successful than those that are known to spew bias and misinformation to prove its own point or attain a cheap, non-informative goal.

I think that credible blogs do indeed hold themselves to standards. We all know the credible blogs around town. While I certainly see bias in the analysis, very rarely are they flat out wrong about the events. In fact, I don't recall any. In double fact, I recall one such blog — Max Brantley's not-very-originally titled "Arkansas Blog" — getting information regarding the no-smiling law on our driver's licenses that turned out to be bogus and through investigation — huh? fact checking? on a blog?! — and then corrected it, shedding light on the subject through good ole fashioned journalistic checking of sources.

But "citizen journalism" is here to stay, anyway. It ought to. At it's very core, all journalism, conventional and otherwise, ought to at the very least be geared toward the citizenry.

The Essence of Twitter (slaps forehead)

Let me first and foremost make a technological confession: I don't much care for Twitter.

It's nothing personal, to Twitter itself or to those who tweet religiously. To each their own. Me and some of my friends are just of the persuasion that at any moment, given the right amount of infuriating circumstance, we could happily liquidate all of our assets and invest in fishing lures and go live on a mountain somewhere. It's really nothing personal.

I've never had news broken to me on Twitter. A colleague and I were discussing the value of Twitter when it broke the story that a plane landed in the Hudson River. We both agreed that the popularity of the social networking device was a bit shameful; It's not like somebody wasn't going to report on a plane crash until — oh crap! — Twitter was on the scene!

But I think Twitter is useful, outside of its best use, that is, of transmitting hilarious headlines from the Onion, or the Ghost of Roy Hobbs.

Twitter is the new blog.

I referenced this briefly in my discussion about the Central Arkansas Champions of New Media. Huzah. Consider what blogs were meant to be when blogs were first created; Simple, quick ways to document a weblog of events or journals on the internet with little to no actual tech expertise.

Now look at what blogs have become. Blogging technology is snazzier. It looks more professional. And it's just as easy. If the news source that feeds the blog is credible, be it the person or business that runs the blog, then boom — It's become a new website and new media outlet. People can use these templates as platforms to get their voices heard and make themselves viable public entities, and spend a lot of time making sure it's well-done and thoughtful.

While wonderful in some respects, it kind of distorts the essence of what it used to be to have a blog.

Now comes Twitter, which limits its phraseology to 140 characters. Barely enough for a headline. Hardly enough for a headline and link to whatever the subsequent story may be. It is, in its most base and analytical sense, necessarily easy. The only thought that must be mustered is to confine one's thought to a mere 140 characters.

But it moves news. The Arkansas News Bureau uses it. The Arkansas Project uses it. Blake's Think Tank uses it. I use it. Lance Turner uses it splendidly. Jessica Dean and Choose Your News uses it. CNN. The Onion. The Ghost. All of these credible news sources are using twitter.

It moves news and it generates conversation and puts people's thoughts out there like the regular blogosphere was supposed to, and still does.

Now if they could just get rid of that danged over-tweeted whale. I've never been so infuriated at an aquatic mammal.