Subject: Re: From Val at FT
From: "Val Stevenson" <val_stevenson@dennis.co.uk>
Date: 3/23/10, 11:09
To: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com>

Re: From Val at FT Hmmm... The project sounds fabulous, and I’m a major True/Slant fan. I’m not up for it purely and simply because I’m about to try a big project of my own.

I think my friend Andy Worthington is well worth approaching. His area is Guantanamo (though he’s also good on Stonehenge and druids, bizarrely); he writes fluently and his research is flawless. His book The Guantanamo Files is a colossal piece of work - www.andyworthington.co.uk/ Ben Goldacre may also be up for it. He’s a very opinionated science writer and blogger with a high media profile here and his book is being ‘translated’ for a US edition - http://www.badscience.net/ (We are all ‘members’ of the Strange Writers Group. There is another Strange Writers Group which is mainly SF, but we got there first!) I don’t know David  Isenberg, but he’s strong - and hilariously funny - on US defense issues. (I’ve just finished a site for a nuclear policy think tank website he used to write for, and he was the only light in a looooong, dark, wrist-slittingly depressing tunnel.) It’s a great idea, so if I think of other people, I’ll pass their names to you. You may not be interested in single-issue bloggers – most of the people I know are specialists.

My own project, which may not work, is an offshoot from the website for The Pavement (http://thepavement.org.uk/, still in beta) – I am chair of trustees, site wrangler, proof reader etc etc of a minuscule volunteer-run homeless charity. I was inspired by Union of Unemployed (www.unionofunemployed.com/), which enables people to lobby locally and obtain greater political clout. Our readers get the shitty end of the stick, so I thought I’d set up a union of homeless and vulnerably-housed people as a SMS-based social network. I do like small and easily managed projects...

A review whenever sounds great.

Will you keep me updated about your project, though – I’m very interested.

Vx

On 18/3/10 22:18, "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Val-

Just wanted to let you know that I received the book a while back, have already compiled some notes, and will get back to you with a review reasonably soon; been more swamped than usual, as I'm now writing for The New York Observer and the Skeptical Inquirer in addition to some other things.

In addition, I wanted to see if you might be interested in a project I'm launching or might know someone else who would be. The intention is to overthrow the existing media structure within the English-speaking world by way of a distributed cartel of bloggers operating within an improved communications network itself operating in conjunction with open-source software being developed for the purpose. I've got several prominent bloggers on this side of the pond committed already and have managed to get backing from a financially-endowed media entity up here in NYC, True/Slant. To put in more Fortean terms, I am launching a global conspiracy.

Below, I've pasted a rough draft summary detailing the specific aspects of the network structure and associated software; let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302



--

Val Stevenson
Reviews editor, Fortean Times (forteantimes.com) - "Possibly the most
entertaining publication on the planet" - Wired
30 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JD

Personal site: nthposition.com - "the 21st century answer to the vanished local bookshop kept by an avid reader with style and taste and real insider knowledge" - Marina Warner. Shortlisted, European Online Journalism Awards, 2003; winner, Utne Independent Press Award, 2004; Webby Worthy, 2005; selected for the British Library archive, 2006.

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