In the communications world there’s an old saying, “If you don’t want what you write on the front page on the New York Times, don’t write it.”
With Sunday’s first release of some 251,200 documents the Wikileaks Website, this old saying has new meaning.
There are documents listed as secret, confidential and unclassified now posted on the site. Where they all came from remains unclear, but the content is an extraordinary breach of national security.
Already on Facebook, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has taken President Obama to the woodshed because the release of the documents happened on his watch. Per Gov. Palin, “However, the latest round of publications of leaked classified U.S. documents through the shady organization called Wikileaks raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco.”
Is that really fair?
Well, I talked to a few people and the response to that question was this: “If Bush had been in office when this happened, they’d be bashing him, so it goes with the territory.”
I suppose that’s true.
Palin goes on to question how “it possible that a 22-year-old Private First Class could get unrestricted access to so much highly sensitive information? And how was it possible that he could copy and distribute these files without anyone noticing that security was compromised?”
While I don’t know that age or rank in the military have anything to do with the level of a clearance a person gets, I think it is fair to ask her second question: How did so much information get leaked?
Treason?
NBC nightly news reported tonight that Wikileaks leader Julian Assange was pretty scarce today. I wonder why. He’s probably now a higher priority target of more black ops people than Jason Bourne. As for the military soldier in confinement for his role in allegedly leaking documents to Assange, it seems to be pretty clear what most I’ve talked about this issue with think should be done. The answer: Try him for treason and shoot him.
Now those all seem like reasonable points to me. One has to wonder if the Sunday Cyber denial-of-service attack against Wikileaks wasn’t inspired by one government entity or another. Maybe it was too little, too late. Maybe it was just some kid hackers out for a bit of fun. We may never know.
What’s Most Troubling
What’s hard to comprehend at this point is that over the next few weeks more and more documents are to be released. This weekend’s batch was just the tip of the iceberg. What’s even more troubling is the compromised people around the globe who have provided our government operatives with information they’d prefer their respective governments, terrorists, thugs, etc. not have known they gave up. There’s most likely not any way on earth to scoop them all up and relocate, protect, or defend them from the immediate and likely deadly consequences they’re likely to face.
The Lessons To Learn
Back to my first point. Even in writing government documents it now appears that in our digital age, NOTHING is sacred nor safe. We used to hear all the time about how hackers were trying to get into government servers and databases. I hope no one reading this thinks that has stopped, as surely it hasn’t, again whether it be rogue nations, terrorist organizations, or teens like in the 1980s movie War Games.
And it appears that government operatives need to find new ways to send/convey personal observations of foreign dignitaries, etc.
It was more than 25 years ago today, when The Beatles I began to play.
The Beatles on iTunes, Nov. 6, 2010
I remember Dad washing our car in Merced, California back in 1969 or ’70 and having his old record player outside and playing the two surviving original 45s we have on Swan Records of She Loves You and I’ll Get You. (One of them, even in those days of The Beatles has a strange message on it: Don’t Drop Out.) Of school, the 45 sleeve? I have no idea, but that day in time, whenever it was, is burned into my mind’s eye in a place from which it will not pass until I am no more.
When I got into seventh and eighth grade, (we were back out in California again) I got hit with my Beatles stage.
I wanted to be the sixth Beatle.
One of my life mentors, who I’ve mentioned here before, Marc Bringman, turned me on to The Red Album. Then I got The Blue Album. Then McCartney came out with Back to the Egg. Then Double Fantasy came out. And then as you know, John Lennon got murdered.
I’ll never forget the call from my friend, Derek Kubacki, who called to tell me. I was stunned. Yes, John Lennon was not a great role model as far as the drugs and weirdness went, but the music he made in his lifetime, even affects mine today.
It was not long afterward that I called my late Grandma Joyce Sheptak and asked her to help me get the rest of the collection. I’d bought several more of the albums, but she helped round out the collection and then later sent me a note, “Okay Kid, Mission Accomplished. Enjoy.”
And did I ever. With the National Electric guitar that Marc had sold me that summer from delivering the Merced Sun-Star, I had made enough money to buy the guitar from him. Marc was like that. He’d had a hard go of life but so long as you weren’t weird or “a jerk like Howard Cosell,” he liked you.
The local radio station, Y-92 FM, in Fresno got into it that summer, too, when they did a trivia contest about Beatle songs. The song of the contest was All My Loving, a song Paul wrote or got the inspiration from while shaving.
I learned how to play the correct version of Yesterday on the acoustic. I can still play it. Marc taught me the main riff for I Feel Fine. I got The Complete Beatles Song Book for my birthday or saved up my money, one.
And of course, in those days, I wanted to have Beatle hair, but alas, with my naturally curly hair, it never was going to be straight. Not to say I didn’t try though.
I made scrap books of Beatles clips. We had a rock band that called themselves, “High Street” living next to us and I’d go over there from time-to-time and see if Mike could teach me a chord or riff or two. And his younger brother gave me a couple of bootleg album covers from the Let It Be Sessions. He also gave me some 8mm movies of them, too.
I was all Beatles. And there’s probably not a song today that I couldn’t recite most or all of the lyrics to.
So Monday when Apple put up their message on Apple.com saying that things were going to change, I really expected it to be the OS update for the iPad and iPhone.
My reaction to seeing that The Beatles were on iTunes was kinda like Paul’s about John’s death. Instead of calling it a drag, I said, which is largely true, Apple, I’ve already digitized most of the collection myself.
But I’ve been exploring the pages on iTunes. They have videos and documentary information I’d like to see and hear. And after a few events of this week, I’ve had to download “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “She Said She Said” off of Revolver. There are a few more I want to get but I’m trying to be conservative.
So if you’re like me and were thinking that this really wasn’t that big of a deal, it really is in so many ways. Apple working with Apple Records? Who would have guessed? Apparently someone decided for real that We Can Work It Out.
And then there’s the affect it’s having stirring memories of the past, of youth dreams left unfulfilled, of the power that these songs have had on my life.
Thank you Apple and Apple. (And I did guess that in the video compilation that you were going to have to end it with The End.)
I still think you should have embedded the last piano note from A Day In The Life on the Apple.com announcement page. Now that would have been cool.
In my mind’s eye, I’ll never for get Nov. 10, 1975 standing in our living room at 208 Fortress on K.I. Sawyer AFB and my mom talking about the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
The winter storms in Northern Michigan are some of the fiercest ever. The ones out on the Lake before they come ashore have claimed countless lives over time. At times, sitting at Presque Isle in Marquette, you’d never guess that Superior could be so timid and so violent as well.
I was almost 10 when the Fitzgerald went down. When Gordon Lightfoot released his song about the ship, radio stations in the UP played it probably more than any other song ever has been played on the airwaves of the UP.
Today marks another anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And in my own way, I’ll always hold this day as a sad one. Obviously, I never knew any of the hard working and brave men on that boat, but their loss of life lives on.
This past summer on our Traverse Adventure to Northern Michigan, my girls got to see the big ore dock in Marquette and see the massiveness of the ships that brave the waters of Superior year round so that we can have steel. Countless unsung heroes have done this work for a couple hundred years. But there are 19 who now live in song. And memories of those who can still remember that fateful day.
This past weekend in Dallas was an active one when it came to being a blogger and working with internationally recognized brands Chevrolet and Nintendo.
Through the power of Twitter, over the past two years now I’ve developed an online friendship with Donna McLallen of Chevrolet. You might know her at @GMTexas and now @DrivePower on Twitter. (If you don’t, I encourage you to reach out to her.)
As you will recall, back in April I went out to Texas Motor Speedway for the first time in living in the DFW area for almost 10 years. It rained that weekend so the races ultimately were run on the weekdays, but there came the promise from Donna that I’d be invited back in November.
Well, the weather Saturday was perfect. I received tickets to go to the special tented area Chevrolet had set up at the track. I got to take a pit tour. And then I got to drive one of about 50 Silverados around the track with a driver standing up in the back. Then I got to go to great seats in the grandstand and watch the race.
But in the midst of all that was the subtle exposure to the new like of Chevrolet cars and trucks. We all know I’m a huge fan of the Traverse (see TraverseAdventures.com).
It was a completely positive experience. There was no push. There’s not even a push to write this post. It was that comfortable of an event.
After a question and answer session, we were invited back down to the display room and were free to play some more before being given a goodie bag filled with a Wasiak’s book, a Nintendo shirt, and a copy of Wii Sports Resort.
Again, the push wasn’t on the products being sold. The push was on having fun getting fit and a focus on the seven things you can do to get your body healthy that are recommended by the AHA.
Before leaving, we all were encouraged to write a letter to ourselves that will be mailed to us at some future date. In my letter to me, I encouraged myself to keep moving forward, to keep my focus, and to keep working hard to eat better, exercise and hopefully, live a while longer as a result of doing such.
TWO BRANDS GETTING IT RIGHT
I provided some clues as to what about all this really worked for me, but I’ll refresh.
1) These brands were featuring their products, but there was no heavy-handed “car salesman” push to get me to buy anything. That makes the experience less stressful.
2) The events were fun and positive experiences. One got me outdoors and walking (From my Nintendo PT Walking pedometer I walked about 6.5 miles on Saturday at TMS), and the other got me doing interactive exercises in my living room, and provided me with a stimulating, self-motivating book, which is just the sort of thing I read, re-read and then apply.
3) They provided me with new contacts, gave me an opportunity to meet new bloggers and friends, and already have led to some very promising business opportunities.
Over on my ClaxtonCreative.com business site, we talk about the social impact, innovation and invention tactics we use to help clients expand their reach and build strong communities around their products and services.
From the activities this past weekend, I have two new and incredible examples of brands that are getting it right.
Disclosure: I received access into TMS, a Chevrolet t-shirt, was fed and drove around the TMS track one lap while at the TMS event. Through the Nintendo event, which was arranged by Brand About Town in LA, a contact I made through the Modern Media Man Summit, I received a lunch at the Irving, Texas Four Seasons, a copy of Hank Wasiak’s book, a copy of Wii Sports Resort, and a Nintendo shirt. I have not been paid in cash by either of these companies to write this piece.
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