The WELL: Topics in the inkwell.vue Conference

inkwell.vue.337: Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox, Netroots Rising

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're pleased to welcome to the Inkwell the authors of Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics, Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox.

Lowell Feld is founder and editor of RK, the largest progressive blog in Virginia. In 2003, Feld was a leader in the Draft Wesley Clark movement. In early 2006, Feld co-founded the Draft James Webb movement, helping persuade Webb to enter the race against George Allen. In July 2006, Feld joined the Webb campaign as its netroots coordinator, helping to raise more than $4 million online. Currently, Feld consults for the South Dakota Democratic Party and Judy Feder for Congress campaigns. In addition, Feld worked for 17+ years as an international oil markets analyst with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Nate Wilcox is a political consultant with over 10 years of experience at the nexus of traditional political communications and the internet. He has worked for Senator John Kerry, Virginia Governor Mark Warner and the late Texas Governor Ann Richards. He is the co-author of Netroots Rising and lives in Alexandria Virginia with his family.

Leading the conversation with Lowell and Nate is the Well's own Jon Lebkowsky, who writes about culture, technology, media, politics, and sustainability. Jon has been blogging since the late 1990s. An acknowledged authority on social media and online community, he also leads web development projects and consults with businesses and nonprofits on web strategy and social technology. He was involved in progressive social media initiatives in the 2004 and 2006 election campaigns, and is co-editor with Mitch Ratcliffe of _Extreme Democracy__, a collection of writings about technology and politics.

Welcome, gentlemen! This is certainly a timely topic, isn't it? [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.336: Gary Marcus, Kluge

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're very pleased to Welcome Gary Marcus to the Inkwell.

Gary Marcus is a scientist and a writer. As a scientist, he is director of the NYU Child Language Center, and a Professor of Psychology at New York University. As a writer, he is author of three books, including The Birth of the Mind, a book about genes and the origin of the brain, and Kluge, a book about evolution and the clumsiness of the human mind.

Leading the conversation with Gary is our own Bruce Umbaugh.

Bruce Umbaugh is a philosopher at Webster University, where he teaches in St. Louis, MO, and online. His work nowadays is mostly about the ethical and social consequences of technological choices, but he wrote a book about the British empiricist philosopher, George Berkeley, too. Back in the day, he wrote a dissertation about rationality that focused especially on the clumsiness of the human mind.

Welcome, Gary and Bruce! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.335: Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're pleased to welcome Hara Estroff Marano to the Inkwell.

Hara Estroff Marano is editor at large of Psychology Today magazine and author of three books, most recently A Nation of wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting. She is on the advisory board of the Bringing Theory to Practice Project, which aims to make higher education conducive to wellbeing by promoting intellectual and civic engagement. She is also a member of the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa (Israel). And yes, she is a parent herself.

Leading the conversation with Hara is our own Lisa Harris.

Lisa Harris is a small business owner and former educator. Lisa has two children, aged 10 and 7. She runs her business from home so she can also double as a stay-at-home mom. Lisa is an active volunteer at her children's school. She is also studying Tae Kwon Do and will earn a black belt within the next 6 months.

Welcome, Hara and Lisa! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.334: Sam Gosling, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're very happy to welcome Sam Gosling to the Inkwell for a discussion of his book, "Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You".

Sam Gosling is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas. Born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, he now lives in Austin. He did his graduate work in Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, where he began his two core lines of research: Personality in non-human animals and the topic of Snoop, how personality is expressed and perceived in everyday environments. He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and he is the recipient of the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution. Please visit him at http://snoopology.com/ .

Leading the conversation with Sam is the Well's own David Adam Edelstein.

David Adam Edelstein is a software designer and street photographer and spends most of his time trying to wrap his head around what's going on in other people's heads. He's delighted to find out there's a word for it, besides "that creepy guy looking at my shoes on the bus."

Welcome, Sam and David! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.333: Paul Alexander, MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're pleased to welcome Paul Alexander to the Inkwell to discuss his book, "Machiavelli's Shadow".

Paul Alexander is the editor of the essay collection Ariel Ascending: Writings About Sylvia Plath and the author of Rough Magic, a biography of Plath; Boulevard of Broken Dreams, the best-selling biography of James Dean; Death and Disaster, a book about the death and estate of Andy Warhol;Salinger, a biography of J.D. Salinger; and The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry***s presidential campaign. This summer saw the publication of Machiavelli***s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove, an examination of the politics of Rove, as well as the release of an updated edition of Man of the People, a biography of John McCain. A former reporter for Time, Alexander has published nonfiction in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, New York, The Nation, The Village Voice, Salon, Worth, The New York Observer, George, Cosmopolitan, More, Interview, ARTnews, Mirabella, Premiere, Out, The Advocate, Travel & Leisure, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Biography, Men***s Journal, Best Life, but mostly Rolling Stone. In Europe, his nonfiction has appeared in Paris Match, Gente, and The Guardian. Alexander is a graduate of The Writers*** Workshop at The University of Iowa and a member of PEN American Center, the Screenwriters Guild, the Authors Guild, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio. In the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He lives in New York City.

And leading our interview will be our own Patrick Lopez.

Patrick Lopez grew up in Houston and has resided in Austin for the past 20 years. He comes from a long line of Texans interested in politics. New to Austin at the end of the 1980s, he watched Rove rise from being just another Austin political consultant, to defeating the undefeatable Ann Richards, to engineering the former ***permanent Republican majority.*** He has long been fascinated by Karl Rove and the mythology of Karl Rove. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.332: Brendan I. Koerner, Now The Hell Will Start

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're pleased to welcome Brendan I. Koerner to Inkwell to discuss his book "Now The Hell Will Start".

Brendan is a contributing editor at Wired whose work appears regularly in The New York Times and Slate. He has won a National Headliner Award for magazine feature writing, and he was named one of Columbia Journalism Review's "Ten Young Writers on the Rise." Please visit him at www.youthrobber.com.

Leading the conversation with Brendan is our own Cynthia Barnes.

Cynthia Barnes is a long-time WELL member whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Humanities, Voyaging and Salon. Her Slate series, 'Timbuktu for the Timid' was listed as "notable" in Best American Travel Writing 2006. A graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, she is currently bouncing between Bangkok, Thailand and Boulder, Colorado. Her online home is www.cynthiabarnes.com

Welcome, Brendan and Cynthia! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.331: Jeff Gillman, "The Truth About Organic Gardening"

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

Our next guest is Jeff Gillman, author of "The Truth About Organic Gardening". Jeff was raised in Southeastern Pennsylvania and attended Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. After college he headed South to the University of Georgia where he earned a masters degree in entomology and a Ph.D. in horticulture. Jeff is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota where he teaches courses on nursery management, plant propagation, and pesticides and researches a wide variety of plant health issues. He is also the author of the books "The Truth about Garden Remedies" and "The Truth about Organic Gardening".

Leading our conversation is WELL member Angie Coiro. In seventh grade, Angie was chosen to read the morning announcements at Coquillard Middle School in South Bend, Indiana. She has been unable to shut up ever since. After 15 years in public radio, she made the break to Air America, hosting Mother Jones Radio. She's received multiple awards for her work, most prestigiously the 2003 Public Radio News Directors award for the best public radio interview in the country that year. (Her guest: Salman Rushdie.) Most recently, Angie is the host of "The Angie Coiro Show" (formerly, "The Green Show with ANgie Coiro") on KKGN in San Francisco. She lives in the Bay Area with an everchanging cast of cats.

Welcome Jeff and Angie! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.330: Farhad Manjoo, "True Enough"

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

Our next guest, Farhad Manjoo, is a staff writer at Salon.com and the author of "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society." He manages Machinist, a daily blog that covers new gadgets, tech culture and tech policy. He lives in San Francisco.

Leading the conversation with Farhad is Bob Rossney, a software engineer and writer who has been on the WELL since before it had .com after the name. His enduring claim to fame is that his was the first email address ever published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Welcome, Farhad and Bob. I'm looking forward to hearing lots more about "True Enough." [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.329: Joe Nick Patoski: Willie Nelson, an Epic Life

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're very pleased to welcome Joe Nick Patoski to Inkwell.

Joe Nick introduces himself this way:

Howdy from the Hill Country of Texas just outside of Wimberley and not too far from Austin (but far enough). I've been writing about music, Texas and Texans for a living over the past 35 years or so, and am the author of Willie Nelson: An Epic Life (Little, Brown), a book which profiles the life of the most important musician to come out of Texas and, I contend, the most important Texan of the past two centuries, It's also a book about my life, and my relation to music, since I get to write about Fort Worth, where I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, and Austin, where I landed in 1973, a year after Willie did. I had my first interview with him shortly after I arrived, and have been visiting with him on and off ever since.

Leading the conversation with Joe Nick is our own Ed Ward.

Ed Ward discovered Texas after Joe Nick did, but it was Joe Nick who tipped him to a job at the Austin American-Statesman while he was suffering as a secretary at Levi-Strauss in San Francisco in 1979. He got the job, and held onto it for five years, interviewing Willie Nelson (whom he already knew from his Atlantic recording sessions and several 4th of July festivals) several times and watching Joe Nick manage Joe "King" Carrasco and the True Believers, as well as help Timbuk3 make the transition from busking to breakout, all bands that Ward also wrote about. Although he lives in Berlin (and is about to move to France), he considers Texas a sort of spiritual home, and agrees with the Texas Music Office's slogan that "You can't hear American music without hearing Texas."

Welcome, Joe Nick and Ed! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.328: Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:06:00 PDT

We're pleased to welcome to the Inkwell Clay Shirky.

Clay teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where he concentrates on how human networks affect technological ones, and vice-versa. Prior to that, he has worked variously as a consultant, tech analyst, and CTO at various internet ventures. In the early 90's, he was vice-president for the New York chapter of EFF, during the 15-minute period when the EFF had chapters. He is the author of the recently published "Here Comes Everybody."

Facilitating the conversation is Well and Inkwell veteran, Jon Lebkowsky, an author and web strategist who went digital when he saw the social potential of connected computers. That was in the late 1980s. Since then he's been involved in online community and social network development, net.activism, web development, and web strategy. He is co-founder of Social Web Strategies, a consultancy based in Austin, Texas. He blogs at http://weblogsky.com

Thanks for joining us, gentlemen. What's up? [Read entire topic]