Social Media – Worthy Mouse Clicks

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Catches a crayfish

Night Heron eats crayfish from Anacostia River Trail enthusiast on Vimeo.

RIP Betty, the Zoo’s 67 year old Flamingo

The great flamingo matriarch of the National Zoo, Betty, died last month. In her honor, we are dedicating our Valentine’s Day yard art (video below) in her memory. Our yard display brings us great joy to see how much the kids in the neighborhood enjoy it and interact with it: https://twitter.com/theHillisHome/status/1491590291886952450

statute of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals with a memorial message for Betty — https://thepopularflamingo.com/blogs/posts/betty-flamingo-dies

#DCflamingos

Anacostia River Trail

Lately, I have been biking the Anacostia River Trail in the morning. It is absolutely, one of the most spectacular urban bike trails in the U.S. While it is only a few miles from downtown, when you are on it, you almost feel transported to a rural wilderness wildlife preserve.

Some mornings, I am so eager to get on the trail, that I do not wait for the sun to rise.

The wildlife (mostly birds, fish and deer) and the imagery (trees, wetlands, shrubs, and flowers) are fantastic.

There is a dock just south of the Bladensburg Waterfront Park that is my usual destination.

I usually bring my camera and make believe that I am on a safari, trying to capture a clear image of the herons catching a fish. The trail extends into PG county and I am always hopeful that I will have a zebra sighting.

Sometimes, I visit the Kennilworth Aquatic Gardens. There is a back entrance, right from the trail.

The National Arboretum is just across the river. A pedestrian bridge is in the planning stage to connect the two.

Here is a link to my latest Anacostia River Trail videos:

https://vimeo.com/user151033887

Radio Ambulate

I recently discovered a great podcast in Spanish called Radio Ambulate. Its episodes are very interesting. It’s creators also do some podcasts in English. There was a recent episode about Guatemala called “Rununcia Ya” (Resign Now). In 22 minutes, it tells the story about how the Guatemalan people forced its President to resign. The Renuncia Ya movement started off as a Facebook post and grew into a series of mass popular protests.

Renuncia Ya episode (Radio Ambulate website)

Renuncia Ya episode (iTunes)

A follow up piece in English with Francisco Goldman is also worth listening to. He wrote a recent New Yorker Magazine story about the events and the back-story entitled ”

From President to Prison: Otto Pérez Molina and a Day for Hope in Guatemala

Francisco Goldman Episode (Radio Ambulante website)

Francisco Goldman Episode on iTunes

When I lived in Guatemala (in the late-1980s), speaking out publicly against the government would get you killed. It is heartening that, although corruption, violence, and political killings are still rampant in Guatemala, its people are now able to engage in political dissent in a public way. Perhaps not always safely, but it appears that there is now more space to voice concerns .

A Fast Food Company That Cares for the Environment

Here is an example of a fast food company that sources sustainably raised agricultural products, including Niman Ranch pork. It has hired small media company to produce a video and an iphone application to tell the story of how industrialized agriculture is destroying the planet. Watch the video they created (soundtrack by Fiona Apple):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lUtnas5ScSE

and then what the behind the scenes video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m3ZOFIE5e4g#t=167

Scribd news

A very good document hosting site that I have reviewed before is Scribd. It is going to get even better. It is transitioning from Flash to HTML5.

HTML5 will run on iphones and ipads, unlike Flash. Plus it will be more expansive taking up the whole browser rather than sitting in a little window. Plus, it will download faster. In addition, the service is about to introduce compatibility with Google Docs. this will make Scribd much more usable and useful.

For more, see:
Scribd: HTML5 & The Future of Publishing

From Media Re:public (by Persephone Miel)

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediarepublic/category/cappucino/

Blogging for a cause – global voices!

Persephone Miel – June 5, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
· CAPPUCINO

You should read Global Voices Online. You should write
for them. You should re-publish Global Voices stories from around the
world in whatever medium you produce. You should give them money.

Why? Because how will you find out what Bahraini Mahmood Al Yousif thinks about Obama’s choice of Egypt for his speech unless Amira tells you?

I keep asking myself why did Obama choose the most
repressive regimes in the Middle East to honour not only with his
presence, but also to use as a launchpad for his Utopian vision of a
peaceful and democratic Middle East? A vision that will continue to
remain as illusive as a desert mirage for us Middle Easterners.

Then I try to select an alternate of the 22 Arab countries where he
could have used instead, but I fail to find a single one which could be
worthy of such an occasion.

– Bloggers React to Obama’s Address

Or how would you find out about Mariam Zouaghi,
a Tunisian student sentenced to six years in jail for her online
activities? (search for her Google News turns up 3 articles, none in
English) without Global Voices Advocacy?

Global Voices is important to me not because it brings us “citizen
media” from around the world. As I have opined repeatedly, I don’t care
whether media is “citizen” or “mainstream” and I live for the day when
those words (as Henry Jenkins proposed so eloquently here at Beyond Broadcast) have gone the way of the term “horseless carriage.”

I care about good stories and authentic perspectives. And I care
about the lives of people in countries that mass-market legacy media in
my country ignore except when there’s a war or a US economic or
diplomatic interest at stake.

Full disclosure: I’m friends with many of the people who make Global
Voices what it is and I’m writing this today in response to an
interesting challenge that could help bring some more money to Global
Voices. But I’m not doing it to help my friends, I’m doing it because I
know how hard they work, how many amazing new projects they’d like to
do and how important they are to the project of bulding the
cross-border connections that we all need to become global citizens.

It is election time in India. Painted walls tells stories of political
loyalty. India is rich with political symbols some more obvious than
others. Congress’ symbol — THE HAND. Photo by Carol Mitchell via Global Voices and Flickr.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about. Check it out.

New Group Tweet Account for Peace Corps community

I created a new grouptweet account (http://grouptweet.com/) for current and former Peace Corps Volunteers: http://twitter.com/pcorps

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkadog/3230895940/

Currently, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPVCs) on Twitter. While, I am sure that they all have very interesting lives and tweet streams. I doubt anyone wants to subscribe to (follow) them all.

However, I (and presumably some of you) would want to know (on occasion) if they have something particularly relevant for the Peace Corps community to to hear.

That is the idea behind pcorps

It will not send out updates. However, followers will be able to receive any “direct message” sent by a follower of pcorps to pcorps

That way followers of pcorps can stay connected, without getting overwhelmed. pcorps will not be moderated. It will be dependent on its followers to be selective regarding the tweets they send directly to pcorps

In other words, if you are a person that sends out a lot of tweets and only a few are particularly relevant to the Peace Corps community, only those tweets that you “direct message” to pcorps will be received by the other members of the community (who do not follow your twitter account directly).

Just become a follower of pcorps and pcorps will follow you back. Then if you or any other follower of pcorps sends a direct message to pcorps , you (as a follower) will get a copy in your tweet stream.

**********UPDATE********
Slight change to the PcorpsTwitter account. I started moderating membership a bit to prevent spam. I also started ocassionally retweeting followers tweets because people are not contributing much via direct message.

If you have something useful to contribute and have not been followed back, leave a comment here and tell me your connection to the US Peace Corps.