“Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy” — Castro Resigns as President of Cuba.
For almost 50 years, Fidel Castro served as commanding officer of one of the few communist outposts in the Eastern Hemisphere. Last night, in a letter to the state-run news outlet, Gamma, Castro claimed he was physically unable to continue his duties. CNN reports: “I will not aspire to, nor will I accept the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief,” Castro wrote. “I wish only to fight as a soldier of ideas. … Perhaps my voice will be heard.”
Musharraf Accepts Defeat in Pakistan
Whew. The world can breathe easy: Pervez Musharraf has accepted the result of an election in which he was defeated. Someone give him a gold star. The New York Times reports: “Many Pakistanis expressed relief that the overwhelming victory of the two major moderate opposition political parties in the Parliamentary elections on Monday marked a change in direction after eight years of military rule under Mr. Musharraf even though in the past the parties have rarely produced models of stable government.”
Editorial in The New York Times Calls for Candidates to Make “Real Urban Policies”
The source for this editorial had to be NAC’s mission statement: “Continue to ignore the plight of urban schools, and soon about half of New York City’s one million schoolchildren won’t graduate from high school. Continue to neglect infrastructure, and face the prospect of more Katrina-like disasters where large numbers of people live or more collapsed bridges that carry thousands of commuters, as happened last summer in Minneapolis. Let brownfields remain polluted, and risk health problems and hurt the potential for job-creating development. Keep encouraging fossil-fueled transportation, and cities will choke on gridlock, and so will businesses and jobs.” —NY Times
Innovation for Sustainability Conference: Wednesday, February 20th
Urban areas are currently the largest contributor to energy consumption and climate change. How can we reverse this trend? How can broadband and Web 2.0 technologies enable a modern urban blueprint that promotes sustainable and economic development? These questions and more will be addressed by global leaders and Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers, who will discuss how technology can transform how we address the world’s most pressing environmental concerns. Officials from San Francisco, Amsterdam and Seoul will share best practices developed over the last year as part of Cisco’s Connected Urban Development initiative.
How Chez Pazienza got fired from CNN for Blogging
Like a journalism major’s mid-term essay topic — Will the “wild-west” frontier of the blogging world ever find it’s sheriff? Chez Pazienza shares his story: “My admittedly worthless opinions on pop culture, politics, the media and my personal past were quickly linked by sites like Fark, Gawker and Pajiba and I found my readership growing exponentially. During this time, I still didn’t consider telling my superiors at CNN what I was doing on the side, simply because, having never been provided with an employee handbook, I hadn’t seen a pertinent rule and never signed any agreement stipulating that I wouldn’t write on my own time. I hadn’t divulged my place of work and wasn’t writing about what went on at the office. The views expressed on my blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, were mine and mine alone. I represented no one but myself, and I didn’t make a dime doing it.”
I swear, this was the only picture I could find of them both that wasn’t terrifying
—image courtesy of LA Times
Bush Sr. tells pundits and right-wingers to read his lips, “No new attackses!” L.A. Times reports: “Asked about conservative unease with McCain, the 41st president read from the diaries of former President Ronald Reagan, who was also assailed by the Right during his presidency for being “a turncoat.” Bush dismissed conservative criticism of McCain as “an unfair attack,” and said the Arizona senator has “a sound conservative record but not above reaching out to the other side …”
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