This weekend I'm attending the LaborTech conference in San Francisco. I've been excited about this all week. The goal of this conference is to put social media, video, web, and cellphone training into the hands of the people who most need it: the workers who are trying to contest the "key messages" put out by corporations and the mainstream media.

Last night I attended a showing of the Motherhood Manifesto documentary. This documentary highlights the work of MomsRising.org, a growing movement with over 50,000 members - and particularly their effort to end employment discrimination against mothers.

I'm all for ending that discrimination - my own mother was denied a job because she was asked a question to determine whether she had daughters or sons (one of the benefits the employer offered would have been considerably more expensive for daughters). Yet I was left with a subtle feeling of increased anomie after the show. 24 hours of thinky thoughts later, I think I know the source of my discomfort, and I also have a new outlook on business and labor law.

After reading the WaPo article on the YouTube Whistleblower, I hope this statement from the Project on Government Oversight gets the widest dissemination possible:

The formal systems that whistle-blowers are expected to use have failed. That's why you're seeing people be creative like this...This is a tremendous way for someone brave enough to do it to say something directly and not have to go through a filter.

In my humble opinion, "filter" is not a strong enough word: perhaps "impregnable barricade" would be more accurate.

This diary was written expressly for Daily Kos, but I thought other progressive bloggers might find it interesting.

Yesterday I was devastated. A friend told me my favorite TV show Stargate, had been cancelled. This was actually announced last week, but I'm not involved in online fandom, so I had to get the 411 the old fashioned way. My friend is entrenched in online fandom, so I guess I'm in the second tier for info propagation from Stargate fandom ground zero. This is approximately where I would put myself in the progressive politics information stream, as well. Not in the room, but an interested party with my nose stuck to the window.

The word "devastated" might strike some as grotesque hyperbole in the context of a cheesy sci fi show. Wouldn't it be more appropriate for me to be devastated over Darfur or the warehousing of the poor in the U.S.? I've been pondering this for the last 24 hours, and I believe I've come up with some insights that may be of use to Kossacks and other people involved in political campaigns.

I just read the NYT article about the stained glass ceiling for women in the church, and I was especially struck by this comment:

...in the marketplace of ideas and values, men matter most and...by definition, women have to take a back seat...

Why do men matter most in the marketplace of ideas?

There's something about Bush declaring a smackdown of Hezbollah that reminds me of the Pharoah Ramses II and his truthiness version of the battle of Qadesh. In 1273, Ramses declared victory over the Hittites despite massive Egyptian casualties and the loss of Syria. Lo and behold, as Bush does his hamster dance of hegemony, here comes Hezbollah's announcement of historic, strategic victory.

Over the last couple of weeks, if you listened through the sound of artillery bombardment and screams, you could hear one word being repeated over and over again: dignity. My ears first perked up when Link TV aired former President Carter's rebuke of the Bush Administration for insisting that Lebanon assume a posture of subservience. This morning (I believe it was on International Dateline), I heard an impassioned Dr. Amaal Saad-Ghorayeb demand dignity for the Lebonese people. A quick sprint through the blogosphere reveals dignity-based activism here and here and here and here.  

After reading about various interesting events that had taken place in virtual venues within the world of Second Life, it finally sunk in. This might have a potential as a civic space, where I could talk to people all over the world about the idea of dignity as a human right.

Second Life is a massive virtual reality environment. It's not so much a game as a global conference call that takes place in fantastic imaginary settings. All sorts of activists could set up kiosks around the virtual public square. People with common interests could meet and coordinate for political action. One day there might even be ways to facilitate voter registration. Enthralled by the vision of cyber-democracy, I set up an account.

From the front page ~ whataboutbob

After I posted my review of Second Life as community building tool, a member of ACORN informed me that their organization has 70 Second Life members. So the idea that there could be hidden civic spaces was still on my mind this morning while I was sorting through diverging views on the Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah hate triangle.

It was a tragedy that I couldn't attend BlogHer. The conference took place a 40 minute drive away (San Jose), and I knew some people who were going. Unfortunately, I don't drive, and I just can't afford the transportation and hotel costs right now. I had thus reconciled myself to the fact BlogHer was out of my reach, and I planned to spend the weekend twiddling with Breakingranks.net and catching up on Jamal Dajani's Middle East Intelligence Report.

One of the problems with establishing dignity as a fundamental value is that everyone's idea of dignity is different. My friend Bob Fuller has been attempting to define it in the breach as the removal of rankism. Recently, I've been trying to supplement this abstract approach by enumerating specifics. As I jotted down images and ideas, a common theme emerged. I realized that the one thing I needed most to be able to maintain my sense of dignity in life was the ability to preserve my integrity.

Tonight at 7 PST and 10 EST, Link TV will be doing another special edition of Mosaic.  Mosaic is a really cool show that brings together news segments from all over the Middle East.

Early this morning, Mary Hodder announced that Dabble had finally gone live. Dabble is a social media site that allows you to organize and share your collection of online vids. I've been working with a beta account for a couple of months (note my nifty collection of YearlyKos video), and it's great to finally be able to share my video playlists with people outside the beta wall.

The strangest thing happened while I was on BART (the San Francisco commuter train) on Friday. The girl standing next to me, who had been complaining loudly about the over-crowded train, spit at the people standing on the platform right before the door closed. Her friends immediately started doing a victory dance, singing "Boo-boo-be-doo - we spit on you!"

Yesterday, while I was standing in line in the post office, people who had never previously met were arguing passionately about the slaughter in Lebanon. It reminded me of 9/11, except the conversation had flipped over somehow. On 9/11, the Muslim family that owns the corner grocery was practicing community diplomacy, handing out free sodas and assuring nervous neighbors that terrorism wasn't part of their culture. Yesterday, non-Muslims were promising their Muslim neighbors that the U.S. doesn't support the murder of civilians.    

I'm posting this for David Brown, a Link TV producer who is making a documentary of YearlyKos. Here's an opportunity for 15 minutes of blogosphere fame!

(Feel free to spread the word!)

If anyone is interested, you can see clips from YearlyKos here: http://www.linktv.org/yearlykos/