I particularly like when he mentions Guardian Editor CP Scott’s quote: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred,” following it up with his own modern twist: “Comment is free, but facts are expensive.” It is the new(ish) reality of the world we live in that high-quality fact hunters are being replaced with, as Ash puts it, 21-year-olds just out of school that all desire to be columnists who want to give their views on everything before they really know about anything.

He also outlines two groups in the speech: Techno-optimists and Scripto-pessimists. “Techno-optimists” are believers that current technology (specifically as it relates to relaying facts to a wide group) will allow us to “all know more about everything and know it better” and that there’s “nothing that old media could do that new media can’t do better”. Scripto-pessimists feel that despite the apparent benefits of new media, the quality of the media we’re getting (again, from a factual, news-relaying point of view) is degrading at a time when we need it the most (due to an increasingly globalized world).

I went to journalism school at a pretty interesting time, at the turn of the century, just as “new media” was coming into play. Because of this, I was trained in a very “scripto-pessimist” version of journalism. However, I’m also of the generation that largely built this new media, and I’m full enough of the wiki-powered, open-source kool-aid to feel I’m in the techno-optimist camp.

Ash states that the scripto-pessimists have yet to be proven wrong, and I strongly agree with him. Perhaps it’s just the “optimist” bit, but there’s no going back now and so we need to all try harder to prove them wrong — as consumers demanding it of the media; as the media demanding it of its journalists; and as journalists demanding it, ultimately, of themselves.

Cheers to Richard for tipping me off to the video.

For more videos, news and general updates check out The Tokyo Post’s Japan Earthquake 2011 page. Information on how you can help can be found here. You can follow Rick on twitter here.

If you’re outside of China, I’m sure if you just search YouTube for “atomic tom iphone” you’ll find this video.

The Poem: HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There’s also the gym. If you’re shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you’re hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they — like you — will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You’re no less intriguing a person when you’re eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching…because, they’re probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there’re always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might’ve never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one’s in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school’s groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you’re happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn’t mean you’re not connected, that communitie’s not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn’t get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

As seen on Wooster Collective, h/t to Ric.

Apologies to any in-China folks for having to turn your VPN on, but trust me, it’s worth it.

• That’s not a dude
• West Virginia Represent!
• No, you’re not mistaken, that is a trailer park
• I’m surprised trailer parks have Internet access too.
• Jiu jitsu appears to be highly accommodating to the heftier among us.

h/t Unreasonable Faith

Here’s the song that kicked it all off:

Be sure to check out Playing For Change‘s Web site. They’ve got a bunch more episodes.

However, it’s officially the weekend, and I’m in the mood for some Olympic-sized funnies:

The Beijing Olympics: Are They A Trap?

Every time she says that “Oh, they’re going to wait until it gets dark, and they’re going to bring out their dragons” I pee a little.

Even more hilarious is that some couChinesegh folks on the YouTube page seem to think that ONN = CNN and missed that this is satire.

I’ve been itchy all week (seriously – I think I have hives or something), and fortunately I caught this video explaining it’s just Olympic Fever.

Chinese Officials: Deadly Virus Sweeping China Is Just Olympic Fever

And finally, check out “Green-Clad Olympic Archer Steals Gold Medals From Rich, Gives Them To Poor”

He’s probably a Canuck – just looking to bring something home to Canada.

Also stumbled across this funny video of the Daily Show in China (h/t Shanghaiist):