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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Rev. V. Gene Robinson Inaugural Prayer

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

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Mogulus & the Post-YouTube Era


Mogulus and the Post-YouTube Era
By
Neal Romanek

(as originally printed in TVBEurope, Dec. 2008)

Internet video company Mogulus, headquartered in New York, has taken the next logical step past the on-demand model and brought no-cost 24/7 live streaming to producers. Live worldwide broadcast has at last become available to anyone with a web connection.

Ironically, live images were one of the very first “broadcast” features carried by the internet in the late 1990’s. The main handicap was that the frame rate might be four frames per minute – and require you to refresh your browser every time you wanted to see the next frame.

Mogulus and its competitors - principally Ustream.tv and Justin.tv – represent the next iteration of internet video, and Mogulus is keen on providing a service in which on-demand, linear and live streaming video are all in the same producer toolbox.

Max Haot, Mogulus co-founder and CEO, moved to London from his native Belgium in 1995. He is best known for founding the ICF Media Platform while at sports media giant, IMG Media. The ICF Media Platform was purchased by Verizon Business in 2005. In 2007 Haot founded Mogulus with Phil Worthington, a graduate of the Royal College of Art and Mogulus’s Chief Product Officer, IMG Media colleague Dayananda Nanjundappa, and Mark Kornfilt, the company’s Chief Architect. Dayananda Nanjundappa is Mogulus’s CTO and oversees the company’s second office in Bangalore.

Max Haot explains, “Most internet video platforms center around on-demand, based on the assumption that people want to watch what they want when they want. But with Mogulus our vision is to give our producers everything that a TV station can do.” “Everything” is the ability to create a live 24/7 channel that runs all the time. Currently, most of Mogulus channels are loop-based with a playlist cycle of programming repeating itself, but Mogulus content can also be schedule-based.

The Mogulus online studio features a text ticker and overlay of simple graphics or logos. A Mogulus channel can go live at any time, allowing multiple live cameras or a mix of prerecorded and live video content. Within the same player, producers have the option of offering an on-demand library of their clips as well.

“We provide the full turn-key service,” says Haot, “So a producer does not need to understand what a content delivery network is. All he needs to do is use our browser-based Studio. And then he can take our player widget and embed it on any webpage or social network.”

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

New Horror Fiction Site - "All The Hells"

I invite you to read rabbit + crow's new meta-horror fiction site, "All The Hells":

http://allthehells.nealromanek.com

Read also the accompanying Twitter:

http://twitter.com/allthehells

All The Hells

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