Peter Slutsky

Tumblr hires writers, editors to cover Tumblr

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:12:26 -0500

Tumblr hires writers, editors to cover Tumblr:

The New York Times reports:

Chris Mohney, a senior vice president for content at BlackBook Media, will be the site’s editor in chief. Jessica Bennett, a senior writer and editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, will be the executive editor and, she said, a kind of Tumblr correspondent.

Their work — both documenting the Tumblr service and marketing it to users — will appear on the Web site’s staff blog and on a separate part of tumblr.com that has not been set up yet, a Tumblr spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Rest in peace, Whitney! We’ll miss your sweet voice.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:14:15 -0500

Rest in peace, Whitney! We’ll miss your sweet voice.

The Story of Us: Five Years Ago Today

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:10:58 -0500

The Story of Us: Five Years Ago Today

February 4, 2012 After Recess: Change the World By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF A BATTLE between a class of...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:57:00 -0500

February 4, 2012

After Recess: Change the World

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

A BATTLE between a class of fourth graders and a major movie studio would seem an unequal fight.

So it proved to be: the studio buckled. And therein lies a story of how new Internet tools are allowing very ordinary people to defeat some of the most powerful corporate and political interests around — by threatening the titans with the online equivalent of a tarring and feathering.

Take Ted Wells’s fourth-grade class in Brookline, Mass. The kids read the Dr. Seuss story “The Lorax” and admired its emphasis on protecting nature, so they were delighted to hear that Universal Studios would be releasing a movie version in March. But when the kids went to the movie’s Web site, they were crushed that the site seemed to ignore the environmental themes.

So last month they started a petition on Change.org, the go-to site for Web uprisings. They demanded that Universal Studios “let the Lorax speak for the trees.” The petition went viral, quickly gathering more than 57,000 signatures, and the studio updated the movie site with the environmental message that the kids had dictated.

“It was exactly what the kids asked for — the kids were through the roof,” Wells told me, recalling the celebratory party that the children held during their snack break. “These kids are really feeling the glow of making the world a better place. They’re feeling that power.”

The opportunities for Web naming-and-shaming through Change.org caught my eye when I reported recently on sex traffickers who peddle teenage girls on Backpage.com. I learned that a petition on Change.org had gathered 86,000 signatures calling for the company to stop accepting adult ads.

My next column was about journalists being brutalized in Ethiopian prisons. A 19-year-old college freshman in Idaho, Kelsey Crow, read the column and started a petition to free those journalists — and in no time gathered more than 4,000 signatures.

Does that matter? Does Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, care what a band of cyber citizens thinks of him? Skepticism is warranted, but so far Change.org petitions have seen some remarkable successes.

Ecuador, for example, used to run a network of “clinics” where lesbians were sometimes abused in the guise of being made heterosexual. A petition denouncing this practice gathered more than 100,000 signatures, leading Ecuador to close the clinics, announce a national advertising campaign against homophobia, and appoint a gay-rights activistas health minister.

The masterminds of the successful campaigns aren’t usually powerful or well-connected. Mostly, they just brim with audacity and are on a first-name basis with social media.

Take Molly Katchpole. Last fall, as a 22-year-old nanny living in Washington, D.C., she was peeved by a new $5-a-month fee for debit cards announced by Bank of America, with other banks expected to follow. She took an hour to write a petition, her first.

“After a month it had 306,000 signatures,” Katchpole told me. “That’s when the banks backed down.” Bank of America and other financial institutions withdrew plans for the fee.

Soon afterward, she started a second petition, protesting a $2 charge imposed by Verizon for paying certain bills online. In 48 hours it had attracted more than 160,000 signatures — and Verizon withdrew the fee.

Katchpole parlayed her successes into a job with a new advocacy group, Rebuild the Dream, which seeks to improve the economic well-being of middle-class families.

As for Change.org, it is growing explosively. Founded in 2007, it is a B Corporation — a hybrid of a for-profit company and a charity, seeking to make profits for social good — and began to soar a year ago. It is now growing by one million members a month.

“We’re growing more each month than the total we had in the first four years,” said Ben Rattray, 31, the founder. He said that 10,000 petitions are started each month on the site, and that each success leads to countless more copycat campaigns.

Change.org has grown from 20 employees a year ago to 100 now, in offices on four continents. By the end of this year, Rattray plans to have offices in 20 countries and to operate in several more languages, including Arabic and Chinese. He recognizes that the site may be blocked in China, but shrugs.

“If ultimately we’re not getting leaders to ban our site, we’re not doing our job,” he said.

Meanwhile, what about those 14 kids in Wells’s fourth-grade class? I asked them what their next initiative on Change.org would be. They are still discussing options, but one possibility is to reduce waste by calling on companies to stop bombarding the public with telephone books and instead distribute them only to people who request them.

It’s absurd to think that 14 fourth graders could accomplish anything so sensible. But then again, they’ve already shown that the Web can turn the world upside down.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook and Google+, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

I can’t wait to see this movie!

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:55:42 -0500

I can’t wait to see this movie!

John's Tumblr: It's Tough to Compete with Simple

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:38:56 -0500

John's Tumblr: It's Tough to Compete with Simple:

lilly:

Yesterday we met with a very talented entrepreneur who said this:

“It’s tough to compete with simple.”

He was talking about their product and how hard they’re working to make some basic human needs & expressions as simple as possible — and how if you can crack that nut, it’s very, very hard for…

nprfreshair: Terry was on The Colbert Report last night. If you...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:58:46 -0500

nprfreshair:

Terry was on The Colbert Report last night. If you missed it, you can watch the video here. Also, here’s a list of the interviews Stephen mentioned during their chat:

Grover Norquist on Fresh Air

Bill O’Reilly on Fresh Air

Stephen Colbert on Fresh Air

Help Great Divide record a new album!

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:55:24 -0500

Help Great Divide record a new album!

betashop: Fab Celebrates 2 Million Members With Major New Browsing Innovations, Open Membership, & International Expansion Plans

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:32:56 -0500

betashop: Fab Celebrates 2 Million Members With Major New Browsing Innovations, Open Membership, & International Expansion Plans:

betashop:

Any day now Fab will surpass 2 million members. We’ve added more than 400,000 new members in the past 30 days and doubled our membership since November.

We’re so excited about it that we’ve decided to celebrate today with a series of new features and announcements designed to make great…

Maurice Sendak: On Life, Death And Children's Lit

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:30:14 -0500

Maurice Sendak: On Life, Death And Children's Lit

superamit: Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:24:27 -0500

superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.

Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.

Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.

Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.

9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!

Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.

Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.

Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:12:00 -0500

First dance. Performed by Teddy Grossman, Matthew Slutsky and...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:52:08 -0500

First dance. Performed by Teddy Grossman, Matthew Slutsky and Jonathan Hull. Epic night.

nprfreshair: At Jim Henson’s funeral, the Muppets (and their...

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:14:27 -0400

nprfreshair:

At Jim Henson’s funeral, the Muppets (and their human handlers) sang his favorite songs. I found this a few days ago and cannot stop watching it. [Related: Frank Oz on Fresh Air]

Mightybell: Pull Your Plants Up! with Rich Roll

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:07:14 -0400

Mightybell: Pull Your Plants Up! with Rich Roll:

mightybell:

Rich Roll is an ultra-endurance athlete, a dedicated vegan, a wellness advocate, a writer, an entertainment attorney, and a family guy. In his Experience, Pull Your Plants Up! 5 Dishes for 5 Days, Rich helps you get the ball rolling on your diet overhaul. He will show you that eating healthy…

Mightybell: Figure out what it means to be a human with SoulPancake

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:43:47 -0400

Mightybell: Figure out what it means to be a human with SoulPancake:

mightybell:

SoulPancake launched its first Mightybell Experience last week, 7 Ways to Creatively Explore Your Soul. If you don’t already know, SoulPancake was founded by actor Rainn Wilson and two of his friends, Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry, as an online community of people to wrestle with and chew on…

Big News!

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:49:12 -0400

Cross-posted on Facebook:

Greetings, my friends! Some of you know this and some of you do not. For those of you who are learning this news for the first time today via Facebook, I’m sorry that I did not get a chance to tell you in person.

After many wonderful and happy years in Washington, DC, Laura (Laura Grossman, not Laura Bush) and I have decided that it’s time for a wee change of scenery. Therefore, I’m excited to announce that we will be packing the family station wagon and moving to New York! We will miss our DC friends dearly, but they will only be a quick Bolt Bus away.

Our plan is to leave DC at the end of July and are looking to move into our new spot at the beginning of August or possibly as late as August 15th. We are looking in Brooklyn (Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Heights), though we are also open to Manhattan, if we can find a good spot and a good deal.

If you know of any apartment openings in any of these hoods, let me know! I need y’alls help! Laura and I will be in NYC this coming week hunting for houses - if you have leads, hit me up! Thanks!

Video

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:52:37 -0400

God Save The Queen! Mazel tov, Will & Kate!

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:32:10 -0400

God Save The Queen! Mazel tov, Will & Kate!

taylordavidson: @jonesststation at Rockwood Music Stage 2 (by...

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:20:47 -0400

taylordavidson:

@jonesststation at Rockwood Music Stage 2 (by Taylor Davidson)