Douglas Rushkoff (who has not only published 10 bestsellers but also was a SMITH blogger—the kid’s got a future!) teaches Technologies of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Paranoia at the Maybe Logic Academy. “This seminar will explore persuasion in a wide range of media,” he says. “Our task will be to evaluate humanity’s ability to maintain agency in the face of the increasingly sophisticated influence techniques used against us.” The course is a very reasonable $145 and runs through November 25. It’s already started—no star for me, I was late on the homework assignment to blog this—but you can still jump in. Prof. Rushkoff tells Wired.com, “You may not be able to go back to your job at the advertising agency after this.” SMITH’s own JahFurry is enrolled, and will turn be offering periodic book reports here.

Josh Neufeld has just finished another chapter (part 1 of a two-part chapter) of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, the webcomic whose images The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says “are sure to linger in memory, perhaps even longer than hours of news footage already have.” Chapter 7, The Bowl Effect, is live now, with part two of this installment coming in a week (or so). Linger over it.

Here’s my theory on why people hate their jobs so much: we never get the chance to embrace our passions. That and a lot of people, sadly, follow a very linear path to “success,” never exiting the straight and narrow to revel in one of life’s many exciting detours. I.E. 1) Graduate high school. 2) Go to college. 3) Major in something that has the potential to earn you a pay check. 3) Graduate college. Get Job ASAP, those student loans aren’t going to pay themselves. 4) Get married. 5) Start to realize you hate job. Change job. 6) Realize it’s not your job. It’s your career. 7) Succumb to societal pressures—and mother or mother-in-law—and have a baby, because the birth of a child always makes things better. Panic and misery set in.

OK, OK this is extremely grim, but you get my point. We all want to make money—enough to retire on an island somewhere or send our kids to college. But I often wonder how much damage do we inflict upon ourselves (and others we love) when we stay at a job we hate simply because it pays well. Do we make good parents, husbands, wives, domestic partners, brothers, sisters, or friends if we’re miserable five and a half days a week (face it, if you hate your job, Sunday evening is totally shot because you’re dwelling on how much you HATE your job and your boss).

Well, I think this latest Weird Job speaks to this idea, that it’s not always about the dough. Now, now, don’t get me wrong; I’m all about the Benjamins (and health insurance) too—but balance is a beautiful thing.

Meet Russell Wattenberg, founder of The Book Thing of Baltimore, a non-profit organization that gives books away—for free.

In an interview to The Christian Science Monitor:

“At no point did I consciously think I was going to give away books,” says Wattenberg. Nor was he animated by an epiphany of some sort. It was more like a benign impulse, such as that felt by someone holding a door for someone in need: no big thing for the door opener, important for the one enabled to pass. (more…)

Apparently, even beautiful mom-of-the-year (and closet former popular girl) Rebecca Woolf has an inner oddball. She also has a crazy-talented inner photographer and a penchant for San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair. Check out her rumination on lost souls here, along with stunning pictures of trannies and leathermen. Me, I prefer to fly my freak flag like a five-year-old. T minus 33 days…

Storytelling. That’s what SMITH is all about. So when I read this story from The Wall Street Journal, I knew I had to share it with my fellow SMITHs.

Citizen journalists in Myanmar are risking their own lives to give a play-by-play account of the deadly crackdown against thousands of peaceful protesters (including Buddhist monks) by transmitting messages via YouTube, text messages, blogs, or cell phone cameras, to news outlets around the world.

Another blog was updated at 3 p.m. Myanmar time yesterday with a few English lines: “Right now they’re using fire engines and hitting people and dragging them onto E2000 trucks and most of them are girls and people are shouting.” Below the post is a blurry photo of trucks with the caption, “This is how they come out and try to kill people.”

According the the article, the last time there was a protest of this scale, the world only heard about it from “diplomats and official media.” But this time around, in the information age, news is spreading fast. And despite concerns surrounding the validity of “Citizen Journalism,” it’s clear that in an environment where reporters have minimal or no access, it’s up to the people who are on the front lines, living it, to tell their story. What’s even more impressive, and speaks to their determination to have their voices heard, is the fact that it isn’t easy to do anything very technical (i.e. streaming video) in Myanmar: (more…)

Sometimes, YouTube is actually pretty frustrating—for example, when you’re trying to find a good Friday video and everyone on the site still seems to be stuck on parodies of Chris Crocker. So I’m in a YouTube-hating mood today, actually, and I figured I’d give another example of its propensity to sometimes, well, suck.

Take, for example, this video, which has somehow gotten more than 2.5 million views, which proves—like nothing since the multi-platinum sales success of Alanis Morissette—that people really are fundamentally silly creatures.

Slate calls the Year in Sex a few months early. Why wait, right? How weird’s your sex year so far?

When you stop in at your favorite bookstore, and the kind and adorable boys who work there let you sneak behind the counter and look up your forthcoming book. And there it is, in their special bookstore computer, and it’s real, and they’ve ordered twelve copies.

Meet Andie Grace, aka ActionGrl, the latest in our series of Beautiful Pregnant Women. Her partner, a great man who answers to the name Thumper, took this shot on AG’s birthday in the deep, dusty Nevada desert. I’ve watched Andie, often from afar, as she’s glided through various life stages, tribes, trials, and transformations with more grace and beauty than sometimes even I can bear. Bassist. Filmmaker. Media maven. The girl you wished was living next door. Girl of Action. Mom to Be. Virgo. Her six-word memoir? “Wasn’t born a redhead; fixed that.” Catch her if you can.

Here’s a bonus shot. Don’t tell anyone.

My headline plays off the mission of the deceptively simple, totally delicious site, Passive Aggressive Notes , which has been around a while but I just found via my peripheral web vision and a tip from any blogger’s BFF. PAN’s part FOUND Magazine, part Overheard in New York and as addictive as both. In a perfect bit of kismet, I found this note waiting for me when I got home the same day I discovered Passive Aggressive Notes. The gods have an excellent sense of humor. And timing.