digital detritus

I love the idea of grassroots journalism. That’s what I was trying to talk about in a previous post about bloggers as stringers.

Today I discovered Dan Gillmor’s blog. Dan does a much better job of talking about grassroots journalism than I can right now and that makes me happy.

This is so important that I sometimes I have trouble talking about it. Let’s face it, corporate news media just sucks. Having people on the ground and contributing to the conversation is key, and wonderful.

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. I was told that the building is the last remaining structure from the World Columbian Exposition (The Chicago Worlds Fair) of 1893. To say that the building is impressive is and understatement. Sadly that’s about all that is impressive about the museum.

What I noticed was that the exhibits seemed almost entirely focused on industry and almost not at all on science. The might do well to change the name to the Museum of Industry and Technology.

The exhibit that really caught my eye was the one called “The Farm.” I didn’t see this written down anywhere but as near as I can tell it was sponsored by the John Deere tractor company. The focus seemed to be entirely on traditional (petrochemical based) farming.

The two biggest things in the exhibit were the harvester and the tractor from John Deere.

I’ve done a little farming in my life, all organic, so I know something about the schedule that you have to keep. I was glad to see that they had an piece on milk production, unfortunately it made the cows look like milk producing machines and not the living creatures that they are.

The sad part about this is that instead of bringing folks closer to where their food comes from it distances them even more. It makes the farm seem like a factory (which, unfortunately, many have become) rather than the dynamic living thing that a farm can be.

What I really missed was anything on organic farming. As far as the science of farming goes, organics are pushing the envelope in many more interesting and important ways than the stuff that comes out of places like Dow and Monsanto.

What with having a new digital camera and since I plan on taking pictures while I am there, I’ve created a group on flickr.com for folks to share photos taken while they are at Tech·Ed this year (2005). I’m sure it will come as a big surprise to folks that the group is named Microsoft Tech·Ed 2005.

So assuming the following people should feel free to join the group and share their photos (once Tech·Ed starts):

1. You are planning to take pictures at Tech·Ed 2005.
2. You want to share those pictures.
3. You use (or are willing to use) flickr.
4. Anyone actually reads this.

[composed and posted with ecto]