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The conference in Denmark was followed by some neat interviews in the Danish press about openDemocracy (and moi). Here is interview with the newspaper Information, and an audio interview from P1’s Mennesker og Medier. The fact that I am able to link to the newspaper article, is thanks to a little contstructive controversy here: Danish / English.

Here is an audio interview with my father, Dan Larsen, on ComputerWorld about Web 2.0 and Danish media. He spoke at the conference too, and we both blogged about it in Danish, here: Blogbyblog.

YouTube’s creators sell the whole thing to Google.

An interpretive ballet about the beauty of enriched uranium.

See who’s been nominated in the Black Web Awards by internet users in 24 countries. There’s a ton of categories you won’t find in other web awards, like “African music”, “black friendly”, and “religion”.

Now, I agree Jay Rosen’s (NYU) NewAssignment.net website is a really good idea. But shouldn’t we wait and see what they come up with before everybody starts raving about it. There is nothing on the site yet!

(It might just be me, but the word “ass” really jumps out in the title)

I watched TV at a friend’s house and was pleased to see the documentery “Out of Control: AIDS in Black America” on Primetime (ABC). Reporter Terry Moran presented it as an underreported story that politicians and activists would have acted on more forcefully if affected White people to the same degree.

“Black Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for over 50 percent of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking—- almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women.”

Some of the conclusions were a little simplisitc in blaming popular culture (hip hop) for glorifying multiple sex partners. But there was adequate wrath for political leaders – both black and white – who have let so many people down. Jesse Jackson got grilled.

The irksome thing was that the film seemed angled to inform White people of what’s going on among Black, as though it’s now something America’s non-Black population only needs to worry about when it boomerangs back.

And now for the latest in user-developed content. You may have heard about Mash-up music (I have). Mash-up video is new to me. Sivacracy blogs that the Washington Post is playing around with video on their site. They provide the questions, you find a video and edit to create the answers. Upload and participate, for fun. And fame.

A woman in the theatre started crying really loud when the buildings came crashing down. She totally lost it, and I couldn’t help feeling a little choked up, wondering how many people in the audience were watching the film thinking about the last minutes of people they knew. The scenes of the towers falling and papers flying through the air were quite well done.

But really, I spent most of the film trying not to laugh at the bad acting, ridiculous script, and superficial characters. And I still can’t figure out whether Nicolas Cage’s moustache was fake. Several people walked in late, there was loud slurping of straws, changing of shoes, and giggling. Don’t believe the hyped reviews that tell you people in New York are watching this film in the serenest of moods. At the movie theatre on Union Square they were still laughing about how crap it was when they walked out on the sidewalk.

Oliver Stone has arguably made the shittiest movie of his career about one of the most significant global events of the century. He’s always courted controversy, but the most controversial thing about the film World Trade Center is just how bad it is.

The weirdest character in the film is a US marine (cut and paste from Platoon?) who decides to travel to New York to help rescue people from the rubble, but only after spending a long time staring at a wooden cross – and getting a haircut. He talks about God a lot, doesn’t do anything to save people, shows off his marine knife, and then (we learn in the post script) he goes to Iraq to fight.

Iraq? What about Afghanistan, Bin Laden, or the Taliban? They’re never mentioned in the movie, which is pretty septic when it comes to politics except for a brief clip of George Bush, after the pet goat incident and before he gets swept away to safety. It’s a boring film, full of overly sentimental Americanisms, and poorly made flashbacks. It does no service to the victims or moviegoers, or to documenting what actually happened.

I am speaking for openDemocracy at a conference this weekend called Bringing the World Home Through Media at Yale University. It’s organized by Americans for Informed Democracy. On my panel are Media that Matters, Link TV, and The Interra Project. About 100 student journalists will be participating.

My colleagues bring you a new bilingual website for discussion about global environmental issues, chinadialogue. All comments and articles are translated into Chinese and English. It’s an interesting experiment, hopefully falling under “permissable online discussion” as China seeks solutions to polution from rapid development – and the whole world depends on it.