Snapping Turtle at Chestnut Hill Park
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/09/2006 - 12:57
Today was Fiona's last day of school. Afterwards, many of the kids went to Chestnut Hill Park. The kids were not the only visitor to the park today. This snapping turtle came out to sun himself for a while before heading back into the nearby stream.
Originally uploaded by Aldon.
Blogger conference call with Chris Murphy
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 13:26(Cross posted at My Left Nutmeg.)
This afternoon, Chris Murphy had a conference call with bloggers to announce his new Web Video. He spoke briefly about how they made the video. It was not scripted out but was simply him talking extemporaneously to the camera. There was a desire to not be cookie cutter.
Key messages of the video are to talk about Chris’ deep connection with the district and to focus on the positive. All of this comes in the context of MoveOn’s advertisements and Nancy Johnson’s attacks on Chris.
The Language of online political videos
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 05:00(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
In college, I majored in philosophy before dropping out. What I know about politics, I’ve learned on the campaign trail, and what I know about filmmaking, I learned from watching Siskel and Ebert as they talked about which way they would point there thumbs.
However, I’ve now been blogging for several years, which gives me a right, if not a responsibility to opine on any subject that strikes my fancy, and so today I want to talk about online political videos.
At the Personal Democracy Forum conference this year, one of the liveliest and most interesting panels was “Is Online Video More Powerful Than TV Ads?” I’ve been thinking a lot about this. The Nedheads group on YouTube has done a great job of gathering videos in support of Ned Lamont, whose campaign I’m currently working for. From this interest, I’ve ended up as a convener of the Media Giraffe Project’s Citizen Filmmaking Track which will be at University of Massachusetts, Amherst on July 29th.
What makes for good online political videos? This is perhaps too general a question, since there are really many different types of online political videos, but it seems as if there are some key ingredients. Like any other medium, they need to get the message across, ideally both directly and indirectly. More importantly, they need to have the sort of appeal that causes people to spread the word virally.
"I won't be able to knock on everybody's door.."
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 14:41... but he made an online video to talk about it.
Ripple of Hope Speech
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 11:53"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Probably, many of you have heard this quote before. I think it is a quote which continues to resonate. But I wonder, how many of you know who said it, as well as when and where they said it? How many of you have read that speech or listened to it or are familiar with the context within which it was delivered?
The speech was given by Robert Kennedy forty years ago today, on June 6th, 1966 during his important visit to South Africa. Some friends of mine are making a documentary film about Senator Kennedy’s visit to South Africa and are currently raising funds to complete the post-production phase of the film.
Please celebrate the fortieth anniversary of this speech by visiting
http://community.rfksa.org to listen to the speech and download a recording of it. Please find out about the film and contribute to it to help ensure that this film is available to a new generation of leaders that will speak boldly against oppression.
The financing of the film is being managed by the 501(c)3 non-profit, South African American Organization, so your contributions are tax deductible.
If you can spread the word about this to others it would be greatly appreciated.
Full Discloser: I am getting paid to create and promote the website.
