May Your RSS Always Be Well-Formed

I'm working on an RSS Profile, a set of recommendations for RSS publishers that make it easier to create feeds that work in aggregators and other software. I published the third draft this morning.

Unlike a specification, the profile contains subjective advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in RSS, like the unresolved question of whether an item may contain multiple enclosures.

The goal of the project is to create a profile that's recommended by the RSS Advisory Board. If that fails, I'll promote it personally on Workbench.

Anyone who wants to build on the profile can do so, because it is offered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license, even in the current draft form.

Rss · 2006/03/24 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Rachel Corrie: The Show Must Go Away

The current issue of The Nation has a great cover story on My Name is Rachel Corrie, a play created from the e-mail and journal entries of the American activist killed in Gaza by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003.

The play was supposed to begin yesterday at the New York Theatre Workshop off-Broadway, but it has been postponed indefinitely because the theater chickened out. Here's artistic director James Nicola's explanation:

In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation. We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict that we didn't want to take.

When Corrie died, I felt admiration for a young American who risked her life to demonstrate her convictions, just as I'd think the same of a U.S. soldier who signed up to defend the country on 9/12 and a Western journalist who left a secure area in Iraq this morning to cover the war. If you don't appreciate the courage of other people, they might quit and leave the job to the rest of us. I find that prospect frightening.

Before she was killed by an armored bulldozer whose driver may not have seen her, Corrie was trying to save a pharmacist's house from destruction. The compassion and bravery she demonstrated with that act can be appreciated without making a tacit endorsement of everything she ever did or said in her short 23-year life.

The story mentions Playgoer, a theater blogger who has been all over this controversy, hounding the Theatre Workshop for an explanation of its decision. The blog includes this excerpt from the play, Corrie's own words:

The scariest thing for non-Jewish Americans in talking about Palestinian self-determination is the fear of being or sounding anti-Semitic. The people of Israel are suffering and Jewish people have a long history of oppression. We still have some responsibility for that, but I think it's important to draw a firm distinction between the policies of Israel as a state, and Jewish people.

That's kind of a no-brainer, but there is very strong pressure to conflate the two. I try to ask myself, whose interest does it serve to identify Israeli policy with all Jewish people?

Politics · 2006/03/23 · 30 COMMENTS · Link

The Dodgers Will Never Forget Hiroshima

I attended Sunday's spring training game between the Dodgers and Nationals at Vero Beach, the first time I've seen a game at the legendary Dodgertown. There are no bad seats, the atmosphere is completely laid back and you're right on top of the players. I sat so close to Eric Gagne warming up along the third base line I could've made a beer run for him.

The history of Dodgertown dates back to the years the team played in Brooklyn, and I found a very unexpected relic from those days in the stadium: an oxidized bronze plaque in which the Brooklyn Dodgers expressed their feelings about the Hiroshima bombing.

The inscription reads:

We dedicate this visit in memory of those baseball fans and others who here died by atomic action on Aug. 6, 1945. May their souls rest in peace and with God's help and man's resolution peace will prevail forever, amen.

One year after their first World Series championship, the Dodgers made a goodwill trip to Japan in November 1956, presenting the plaque with the intent it could be displayed in Hiroshima, as the word "here" indicates in the inscription. Only 11 years had passed since the bombing.

How the plaque ended up in Vero Beach is a mystery. All mentions on the web make it sound as if the Japanese kept it.

The emotional impact of the plaque, which marks an event that claimed an estimated quarter-million lives, is diminished somewhat by its placement next to a concession stand's mustard and ketchup dispensers, right beside another plaque that recognizes Dodgertown for achievements in landscaping.

Sports · Florida · 2006/03/20 · 14 COMMENTS · Link

RSS Board Supports Common Feed Icon

The RSS Advisory Board proposal to support the common feed icon has passed 5-0.

In an effort to make the concept of syndication easier for mainstream users, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera will all identify RSS and Atom feeds with the same icon:

Subscribe

The board has adopted the symbol on its site and encourages its use on web sites, browsers, and syndication software.

Additionally, the board encourage web publishers to use the icon on any feed, regardless of whether it employs Atom or the two formats that call themselves RSS: RDF Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication.

If you've added the icon to a site published with Movable Type, WordPress or another weblog publishing system, your tips on implementing the icon are welcomed on the RSS-Public mailing list.

Atom · Rss · 2006/03/20 · 7 COMMENTS · Link

Crunchitize Me, Arrington!

Michael Arrington, the publisher of TechCrunch and the human router at the center of Web 2.0, questions the work I did for Dave Winer on Weblogs.Com:

I was part of the weblogs.com transaction and was also very dissapointed with Rogers Cadenhead's performance. I have no information on the second part of the dispute.

Arrington was Winer's attorney on that project. I have no idea what he's referring to here, and he hasn't returned an e-mail on the subject. The entirety of our relationship was a few cordial e-mails exchanged during the execution of a work-for-hire contract.

That negotiation was simple. He sent an agreement and I told him this:

I've looked over the contract. I have no concerns aside from sections 5b. and 5c., which have non-compete language in them.

I can't agree to a provision that prevents me from doing substantially similar work for one year and prevents me from entering into the relationships described in 5c.

When I priced this job, it was under the assumption I'd be free to exploit my growing expertise in this area. If this is going to be my first and last job in weblog notification, we need to talk about additional compensation. Otherwise, I recommend removing 5b and 5c.

His response: "Go ahead and delete those." So I did.

I can't think of any reason for his disappointment, because both sides of that contract were happy with the outcome. Winer even acknowledges that it was a good experience, in spite of our disagreement over Share Your OPML.

I'm guessing this is an example of Friendship 2.0.

Programming · 2006/03/18 · 12 COMMENTS · Link

Katherine Harris Had Me at 'Herlo'

When the number of people drawn to your Internet flamewar reaches critical mass, it becomes a This is Your Life episode where anyone you've ever angered might pop out from behind the curtain. I'm waiting for a few people to appear, such as the guy I tried to beat up at Bentley College in 1986. I've always wanted to know if I landed at least one bruise with my flurry of sting-like-a-butterfly blows.

Though I'm loathe to admit this, Katherine Harris is kind of hot. The 2.8 she's pulling on Am I Hot or Not is a traveshamockery.

I know I'm venturing into too-much-information territory, but when Harris showed up drunk last August on Hannity & Colmes, sitting three-quarters profile and slurring her words, she swayed my voter.

Politics · Television · 2006/03/16 · 13 COMMENTS · Link

Remembering the Kennedy Memorial

There's an open air memorial in Dallas near the spot of President Kennedy's assassination. Designed by Philip Johnson, the memorial consists of a 50-foot-square concrete box with 30-foot-tall bare walls that surround a flat granite slab inscribed with the president's name.

Outside, a plaque contains the following inscription:

The joy and excitement of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's life belonged to all men.

So did the pain and sorrow of his death.

When he died on November 22, 1963, shock and agony touched human conscience throughout the world. In Dallas, Texas there was a special sorrow.

The young President died in Dallas. The death bullets were fired 200 yards west of this site.

This memorial, designed by Philip Johnson, was erected by the people of Dallas. Thousands of citizens contributed support, money and effort.

It is not a memorial to the pain and sorrow of death, but stands as a permanent tribute to the joy and excitement of one man's life.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy's life.

I'm a Dallas native born to an Irish Catholic family. My mother was 15 in 1963, and she skipped school with several friends to see the president and first lady pass by in the motorcade. By the time the teens returned to their car, the first reports of a shooting were hitting the radio.

It's hard to explain to people who aren't from the city the palpable sense of inherited guilt that followed the assassination, even for someone like me born after it happened. My mother told me that for years later, she was embarrassed to tell people she was from Dallas.

The Dallas Morning News has reopened the decades-old debate over whether the memorial is a fitting remembrance of the president. Writing in Slate, Witold Rybczynski said that Kennedy deserved better:

It is all, sad to say, poorly done. Painted precast concrete is hardly a noble material, and the blank surfaces are relieved by rows of roundels that make the walls look like mammoth Lego blocks. The shiny granite slab is black, but being square and low it looks more like a coffee table than a funerary marker.

I visited the Kennedy Memorial on a field trip as a child completely enamored with Kennedy, as you might expect of a young Catholic and future liberal. If there was any joy or excitement within those bare walls, I didn't find it then and would be hard-pressed to find it today. The Sixth Floor Museum is the place to go in downtown Dallas to mourn the president and mark the toll his death took on the country.

However, the Kennedy Memorial is too much a part of the historic response to the assassination to ever tear it down. The most I'd like to see Dallas consider is the addition of something that complements the work and conveys more vitality, such as light climbing heavenward in the manner of the 9/11 Tribute in Light.

Politics · 2006/03/16 · 28 COMMENTS · Link

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