Category: take action

politics, social justice and ways you can make a difference in the world around you.

Facebook to users, ‘We own you!’

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The headlines a little misleading. They don’t claim they own you… just own all your content and everything else you post to their site.

They’ve changed a little paragraph in their terms of service to read ::

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

posted this earlier this evening on Facebook….

Facebook claims ownership of everything you post on their site

As of Feb 4, Facebook updated their terms of service to claim ownership of everything you post to their site — even after you might choose to cancel your account with them.

I’m not real happy with this at all. I’ve made 99% of my creative content available with a Creative Commons 3.0 license. That basically says that you’re free to use and share my content as long as you give me credit, don’t use it for commercial reasons (make money off of it) and you don’t change the licensing of it (i.e. Copyright the material).

But Facebook now claims they have ownership of everything I post on their site. That includes my recent cruise pictures, random videos of me and my friends eating sushi, pictures of my wedding and honeymoon as well as content we’ve created for the something beautiful podcast.

They claim they have the right to it all – and can do with it as they please. Of course now that there’s a lot of hub-bub going on, they finally clarified their changes as of 5 p.m. today — 8 days after they quietly changed their terms of service.

So, until they change their terms of service back to what they were, I won’t be posting any new content of my own to Facebook.

It’s still easily accessible to to those who would like to view it.

I have an RSS feed setup so you can have everything that automatically posts to Facebook already sent to your favorite RSS reader (I like Google — especially with their 10 guiding principles—including #6, “You can make money without doing evil.” Or, in short, “Don’t be evil.”) or you can have it emailed to you.

Simply visit my blog and click My Life in RSS and you’ll be able to subscribe to the same information I post here on Facebook.

Sorry for the hassle, but hopefully if more and more people are made aware and more and more people take action, something will be done.

For more information check out Steve Knight’s great blog post

And check out how other services like Google, Flickr and Twitter compare to Facebooks Terms of Service

And if you want to abandon Facebook all together but still have some fun online, check out these social networks :: encounterthis.ning.com and somethingbeautiful.ning.com

UPDATE: Here’s the license info from Ning.com…

Ning does not claim any ownership rights in Your Content. After posting Your Content, you continue to retain ownership of Your Content, and you continue to have the right to use and license Your Content in any way you choose. The Content that you upload to any Social Network needs to comply with the terms of this Agreement. At any point, you can take Your Content from Your Network and cancel your account and Ning does not retain any license rights except as provided below.

Jeremy Halbreich to head Sun-Times Media

Former Dallas Morning News Manager and CEO of American Consolidated Media (my former employer), Jeremy Halbreich, is heading to the Windy City.

According to the Chicago Tribune ::

The management shakeup at Sun-Times Media Group Inc. continued Wednesday, as the Chicago newspaper publishing company’s newly installed board tapped one of the company’s directors to serve as chairman and interim chief executive officer.

The new chairman is Jeremy Halbreich, former general manager of the Dallas Morning News and one of three directors elected last month when a dissident shareholder’s successful proxy fight ousted all but one of Sun-Times Media’s sitting directors. As chairman, Halbreich succeeds Raymond Seitz, who lost his seat in January in the proxy fight.

Halbreich founded American Consolidated Media roughly 10 years ago after he left the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper group grew and was sold to Macquarie Media Group (for $80 million) a few months before I left the Waxahachie Daily Light (an ACM owned paper).

With the money and backing of the Australian Macquarie Media Group Halbreich told the Dallas Business Journal that “ACM has grown into the fifth-largest community newspaper group in the U.S.”

Halbreich remained as CEO of American Consolidated until August 2008 when he stepped down and Liam Stewart, an ACM asset manager, was appointed interim CEO.

“Now that the planned acquisition and expansion phase of ACM is complete, it is an appropriate time for me to step down from full-time responsibilities,” Halbreich said at the time of his resignation.

Some have suggested that the Macquarie Media Group purposely purchased up many of the smaller-town newspapers along I-35 in order to help control the local media as it relates to the Trans-Texas Corridor (aka the suggested Mexico to Canada toll road). Macquarie Bank (MMG’s parent company) is heavily invested in toll projects around the US and many expect them to play a roll in many future projects as well.

Obama creates Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership Council

“Instead of driving us apart, our very beliefs can bring us together,” President Obama said yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast.

E pluribus unum, in other words.

From the Whitehouse.gov blog ::

The President named Joshua DuBois to lead the office, and also announced the creation of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships — a group of 25 religious and secular leaders.

“Whether it’s connecting groups that are training people to do new jobs, or figuring out the role of faith-based organizations in combating global climate change, this office creates those partnerships in a way that’s responsible, constitutional, and — bottom line — helps those in need,” DuBois said.

It will be interesting to see what comes from this council.

Sustainable Dave limits trash to almost zero

What would it take for you to really reduce your trash impact? Could you reduce your waste to less than 30.5 pounds of non-recyclable trash in a week? How about a month? Or a year?

Dave Chameides did just that — creating less trash in all of 2008 than an average American family throws out in a week. And more impressively, he did this without changing his eating or lifestyle habits to drastically.

“I didn’t want to change the way that I was living my life,” Dave told Sustainablog. “If I wanted to drink beer, I wasn’t going to say, well, I can’t find a way to drink beer without creating packaging, so therefore I’m not going to. Instead, what I’m going to do is look at the packaging in beer and pick the most ‘eco-friendly’ way to do it.”

He’s got several cool videos on Vimeo, including how he composts food and junk mail with 6-7k worms in his basement (and it only takes up roughly 1’x1′ of floor space), as well as what he carries in his bag each day to help reduce his trash impact.

In the end, Dave amassed just 30.5 pounds of non-recyclable trash. However, that wasn’t the only stuff he piled up in his garage though — Dave decided to keep his recyclables for the year too, to show that “recycling isn’t the answer.”

“If you look at the majority of the waste that I put out there, it’s recycling,” Dave says. “That’s gonna take energy, it’s going to take resources, it’s going to take all sorts of things. I think we’ve been trained in the U.S. to think that recycling is the answer. But statistically, only 10% of everything that can be recycled is recycled.”

Check out his Vimeo stream or his blog sustainabledave.org for more ideas.

In my neighborhood

long exposures

I saw this on a random church website describing their community groups…

Hopefully over the course of the year, our neighborhoods will be blessed by our coming together.

Could we say this about our own individual community groups/families?

Could we make that our goal this year?

Daniel’s Den, Waxahachie Cares, Austin Street, Goodwill etc. etc. etc. are ALL great causes. And I love the stories I hear about folks getting involved and wanting to get involved with each of them.

But what about YOUR neighborhood? Will it be blessed by your family and your group coming together this year? How will your group – no matter what size it may be – how will it bless your neighborhood?

Some ideas ::

  • Host a BBQ for your neighbors
  • Host a party for the big game and invite your neighbors
  • Deliver cookies or small bags of candies to your neighbors
  • Plant a community garden
  • Work to keep your house and landscaping in top notch condition and help encourage others to do the same — offer to help when they may not be able
  • Organize a neighborhood watch
  • Stock your freezer with heat and serve lasagnas or soups for when a neighbor gets sick or out of work
  • Invite neighbors over for coffee or tea or whatever
  • Get involved in the HOA – be a voice for positive change – not complaining about the wrongs others are doing
  • Walk the neighbor’s dogs
  • Pick up the mail for a neighbor going on vacation

I think the key to remember, no matter what it is – don’t do it because you have an agenda. If they ask why you’re doing it, just say “I want to be a better neighbor.”

What other ideas do you have?

What do you wish your neighbor would do for you? Now go and do likewise.

And while you’re at it – say a prayer for me and our group. Pray that we also can begin living this idea out.

The youth of a nation

Rene Marshall shared a great reflection on the recent violence in Jos, Nigeria and the youth that were involved.

Isaiah - a youth being cared for by ECWA in Jos
Isaiah – a youth being cared for by ECWA that I met while in Jos

“The spiritual decision I made this year in camp was not to steal, no fighting, and no lying. May God give me understanding and love to people, not to be bad to any people in this community.” –Jos ECWA Camp Youth Alive Camper
Two youth campers
Two youths at ECWA Camp

As I read over this evaluation the other day, I could not help but wonder about the camper who wrote it. Was he involved in the recent Jos crisis? Did he have an opportunity to retaliate and involve himself in violence? Did he choose not to in the name of love and Christ-like humility? Has he been an agent of peace and comfort to those in his community now in the wake of the crisis? All of these questions started swirling around in my head and I started to have a new perspective of the situation we’re living in.

Like the rest of the Jos population, the events of late November 2008 set me back on my heels and made me take another look at the city and community I live in. As someone who has devoted her life towards working with youth, specifically, Nigerian youth, my heart ached when I heard that youths were the ones carrying out many of these atrocities.

Rene wonders how different the riots in Jos would have been if more of the youth would have had the chance to learn about real grace.

What if they memorized scriptures like 2 Corinthians 4:8,

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going…Yes, we live in constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be obvious in our dying bodies.”

Or James 1:2-4,

“Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”

Christian author Shane Claiborne has said, “grace is contagious, just like violence.” What if we were able to channel the passion and energy of the youth into spreading grace and not violence?

I have to also think back to my backyard and the neighborhood/city I live in – even the state and country I live in. Are we quick to return violence for violence. Are we so set on revenge that we’ve completely forgotten that God says, “Vengeance is mine.”?

What if as Brian McLaren says, we’re known for an “insurgency of love” rather than an insurgency of shock and awe? Wouldn’t that be the greater shock and awe – if we turned the other cheek – if we sought non-violence rather than revenge?

I still think back to Bush’s Ungiven Speech that McLaren wrote. What if?

Since I hold to the ancient beliefs that vengeance is not a human prerogative and that pride goes before a fall, I have no desire to take our nation down that bitter road. I have become convinced that if we follow a course of war, the results will be undesirable at best and catastrophic at worst. But if we refuse to return violence for violence, if we decide on a response that is at once courageous and peaceful, we can seize this tragic moment as an opportunity not to return evil with evil, but rather to overcome evil with good.

Since September 11, America has experienced an outpouring of emotion from nations around the world. It has been said that on September 11, everyone became an American because all shared our grief and shock. And we Americans learned and felt what so many people in other nations experience on a daily basis: vulnerability, danger, and fear. So in a sense, the whole world has been caught up in a moment of global empathy since that tragic day. I would like to seize upon this moment.

So I am today proposing a plan of peace and security, not through war and revenge, but through cooperation and justice. My plan could be called a plan of courage, character, and cooperation…

If we launch a massive military response to terrorist attacks, we make ourselves appear aggressive and intrusive globally, which plays into the image of us terrorists want to paint, enabling them to recruit more terrorists, launch more attacks, and plunge us farther and farther into their vicious downward cycle. Instead, we must refuse to be drawn into their trap. We must defeat terrorism through broad and multi-faceted international cooperation, dealing collaboratively with its causes and reaching broad international consensus on how to respond when terrorist actions arise.

Martin Luther King Jr wrote ::

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder.
Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth.
Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate.
Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that . . .
We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the dis-chords of war.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Love wins! Now what can you do to prove it to the world?