2011-05-03 (Tuesday)

Writing

1. Funding niche news services

   Matt Edgar’s trying to get a few people to fund a quality, local news serivce for Leeds.

   • 2011-05-03
   • 2 comments

2. More blogging

   It’s time for more blogging.

   • 2011-05-03

3. What I read on my holiday

   Notes from holiday reading.

   • 2011-05-03

Links

1. I will commit £23.32 per month to a citizen-run news service for Leeds… – Matt Edgar

   Interesting… trying to get a regular, quality, local, online news-site funded. Not by individual readers paying, or by one deep-pocketed entity paying, but something in between. (via gilest)

2. YouTube - The Netizen

   Finally able to transfer my previously Google Video-hosted copy of the 1996/7 Wired TV pilot programme to YouTube. Whatever happened to cyber-rights?

3. TimeRime.com - Homepage

   Create your own (Flash-based) timelines. You know when you have an idea for a site and then you find something that sort of does it, but not quite how you wanted?

4. Religious Faith and John Rawls by Kwame Anthony Appiah | The New York Review of Books

   Tracing John Rawls’ changing ideas from “the eternal claims of Christianity,” through ‘A Theory of Justice’s “appealing to the universal truths of reason,” to deriving ideals from the “shared consensus of democratic citizens.” (Subscribers only.)

5. Foreign Aid for Scoundrels by William Easterly | The New York Review of Books

   Given the recent distancing of organisations from Gadafi, who turned out to be a “bad” dictator, rather than a “good” one, reading this article from November 2010 about the billions in aid the West gives to many dictatorships with no meaningful requirements for reforms is funny (as in “not funny”).

6. All Programs Considered by Bill McKibben | The New York Review of Books

   An overview by Bill McKibben of the good bits of American public radio, comparing radio to other media, outlining its difficulties. Some things I should listen to, given the time.

7. The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books

   If I ever see ‘Waiting for “Superman”’, I should read this again. A relentless critique of the film’s arguments for US charter schools over public schools, probably applicable to the UK’s academies too.

8. A New Theory of Justice by Samuel Freeman | The New York Review of Books

   Starts with a good summary of John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’, then Amartya Sen’s critique of that, then the article’s author, Samuel Freeman’s, critique of that. But subscribers only, booo.

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