Wiki Legislation Mark-Ups?

Now here's a great idea (via the Wikipedia Blog): Congress should start writing legislation with a Wiki model. Excerpt: These are really thought-provoking suggestions. I was particularly struck by Karl's suggestion of a version control system for Congress. They say you don't want to see either laws or sausages being made, but I think they are wrong. Imagine how much more transparency and accountability our government would have if it were possible to see what changes were made by whom, who inserted extraneous riders into various bills, and generally to track the influence of various interests by the new visibility into their actual control over the knobs and levers of government!

Weekend Items

Several things:

• I had never come across this transcipt/article before about DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid even though it's over seven years old. Excerpt: When we look at art we see how cultures become cross-fertilized. In the US there are many cultures, North/South American, African, Asian...The US has the widest variety of cultures in the smallest geographic region in the history of human civilization. So when you have access to the recordings of all these diverse cultures, continuous access to them, that's when things get really interesting. With collage, anything goes, anything can be mixed and transformed. Art is a reflection of culture, and to me music is our social reflection.
• Cool blog to add to the sidebar, via Bella Rossa -- The Groovy Age of Horror.
• Another blog to check out -- that of graphic novelist Warren Ellis.
• Via Techyum, here's the NYT on the U.S. Court of Appeals telling the FCC to go fuck themselves. Excerpt: Mr. Martin, the chairman of the [Federal Communications C]ommission, attacked the panel’s reasoning. “I completely disagree with the court’s ruling and am disappointed for American families,” he said. “The court says the commission is ‘divorced from reality.’ It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality.” He said that if the agency was unable to prohibit some vulgarities during prime time, “Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want.” Anything they want? Oh my God, not that!
• Here's a guy who always likes to identify exactly which books are sitting on the shelves when he sees pictures with bookshelves in the background. Excerpt: I wish someone could put a stop to this epidemic. Whenever I see such pictures I have an uncontrollable urge to seize the nearest magnifying glass and try to decipher the titles. What is it that drives some people (I know others who confess to this failing) to devote their time to such snooping when we could be walking the downs, or exploring the music of Medtner, or deconstructing the latest piece about Paris Hilton? (No need to explain -- I do the same thing.)
• I like the philosophy of this Rebecca Blood post (and the post of the librarian from whom she got the article) recreated here in its entirety: How to be a more effective researcher -- Q: Question: How do I start researching? Answer: Treat research as a lifestyle not an assignment. A great approach from what appears to be an academic librarian, including a new (to me) term: The Invisible College. [Wikipedia article] Bloggers will immediately see themselves in this role, so it's worth pointing out that anyone who limits themselves to blogs will miss many other communities of interest, online and off. Here's the main page of the blog referenced by a librarian named Linda Jones. That kind has to do with how I approach my Wikipedia edits... I get a topic I am interested in, and review the material that other "amateurs" have prepared, and then just kind of see how I can improve the organization, presentation, and indexing of the material, and see what blanks I can fill in to lend towards greater completion.

Very Interesting Documentary on Adolf Eichmann Trial

We're partway through (hope to finish tomorrow) a fascinating documentary on the 1961-62 trial and sentencing of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann from several years ago, called The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal. It's all footage from Eichmann's trial, without any commentary or explanations except those of the judge, prosectors, witnesses, and Eichmann himself. The footage was shot by a filmmaker named Leo Hurwitz (here's part of an interview with his son, Tom, who has done stuff for PBS) and this film was put together by another filmmaker (who wasn't even born at the time) named Eyal Sivan. It's well-worth viewing.

I wonder if the media handlers in Saddam's trial were going for the same effect as this trial, kind of like when they had Colin Powell Adlaicize the U.N. prior to the invasion of Iraq.

The doc says it is insipired by Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, a well-known work by philosopher Hannah Arendt, of which I have an unread (by me, anyway) copy right here. I might dig into that after I get myself to finish the unjustly procrastinated Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan.

Here's a contemporary newsreel, here's a summary of how the Israeli Secret Service caught him, and here is practically every piece of documenation you could want on the 4 1/2-month-long trial.