current product blog 152 items | updated Jun 1 2010

The other morning as I was scrolling through my blog reader, I came across this post from Etsy, about the film Mardi Gras: Made in China, and as I was reading it, I remembered that Current had aired an except from the film a while back. I'd seen it then, or at least started watching, but couldn't remember if I'd had a chance to actually sit down and watch the whole thing. So, this morning I did.

I was totally blown away.  The contast between the excess of Mardi Gras and the factory in China is astonishing. I consider myself a maker and a conscious consumer, for reasons both political and personal  (I'm kind of picky) but really, how often do we consider where our stuff comes from? Especially in a time of recession, when tales of American jobs disappearing are a regulkar occurance, the flow of stuff continues. So, why don't we think more about where it comes from? Or are people thinking about it--do films like this make you rethink your consumer habits? If so, what are you doing to change?

It's something to think about.
(For the complete version of Made in China, head over to Carnivalesque Films.)

Steph

Hello Currenteers!

In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release is serving up some major upgrades to our commenting system. Discussions on Current.com are extremely important to us, and we've come up with a few updates to existing functionality as well as some new enhancements that will help pave the way for the months to come.

Let's take a quick tour:

Comment Voting: That's right, comment voting is now officially implemented on Current.com.



Each comment will have an individual score based on the aggregate count of votes, so for example: If a comment has 51 votes up, and 52 votes down, a "-1" will display. So, what are you waiting for? Reward discussion-driving folks by giving them a coveted vote up. Find someone detracting from the discussion at hand? Give 'em a vote down.

Sorting Options: Why not offer some alternative ways to sort comments?



We're changing the default sort on all threads to "Newest" first, this way you'll always see the latest discussions on the main landing page. But, for those of you who prefer to read threads in the order in which they developed, you can always sort by "Oldest" as well. And since we implemented comment voting, it would be a travesty not to offer a sort by "Popular" option. We think this will be an interesting way to find new and insightful commentary on Current.com threads as our discussions develop. Try it out!

Replies and Pagination: We've made a couple important changes to the way replies and pagination work on Current.com.



All reply threads are now "open" as a default, you are no longer restricted to replying only to the original commenter, and we've changed some of the design aspects for replies as well. In our older system, any time you reply to someone on a thread you were automatically replying to the first comment on the thread. Now you can elect a person to reply to, and their name will appear at the beginning of your comment. You'll also notice that replies longer indent on discussion threads -- instead the avatars in reply comments are slightly smaller in size.

These decisions were largely made to help facilitate the ability to sort by popular. For example, a reply to a thread could be more popular than all of the comments on the entire thread. This allows us to display each comment ranked on popularity, while still retaining it's reply status.

Additionally, we've done away with pagination. That's right, each comment now loads by default, which means your scrolling finger will now be ready for a workout.

Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.

Thanks!
mario

Recently there have been a number of issues raised around Current's Community Guidelines, and while we've written several blog posts on these in the past, it seemed like a good time to go ahead and revisit some of this.

Why have guidelines at all?

The Community Guidelines weren't just pulled out of thin air--they're things we've thought long and hard about, and things that we'll continue thinking about and discussing. I've been at Current for close to three years now, and I can tell you that I don't think a day has gone by that I haven't been involved in a discussion that grew out of one of these guidelines. (Well, maybe the days when everyone else was on vacation, but that's just because I try not to talk to myself.)

But here's the thing--these guidelines are here for a reason. Of course, there are the obvious reasons--to keep spam and porn out, for one. But that's not all. Debate and discussion doesn't happen in a void, and Community Guidelines are meant to create an environment where people can disagree respectfully--where the arena isn't ruled by a handful of bullies who sling insults and intimidate others into silence. It would be nice if everyone behaved respectfully without some sort of guideline or rule structure, but so far, that hasn't worked anywhere in pretty much the history of humanity that I'm aware of.

What about free speech?

It's still there. Current is a private website, and you agree to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines when you register an account.  Failure to abide by these Terms and Guidelines may result in the removal of your account.  You are, however, free to avail yourself of the communities or sites that revel in unmoderated, no holds barred discussion or to start your own site should you so choose.

But the internet should be the wild west.

Well, that's certainly one opinion. Of course, even the Wild West had pockets of civilization, so perhaps the best analogy would be that Current is the rare town with more schools and churches than saloons.  A refuge for those looking for an island of civilization. Of course, there's nothing tying anyone down; you can always hop on your horse and mosey on over to the next town--the one with four saloons on one block and a bar brawl every half hour.

So, people aren't allowed to disagree?

Of course people are allowed to disagree--comments or accounts are not removed because they don't fall in line within any particular ideology or view. It's not about your views--it's about the way you're expressing them. If there's not a way to make a point without engaging in racism or bigotry, or without beating your opponents round the head and shoulders with a virtual two-by-four, that's a problem. A quick look through the site will reveal plenty of debate and disagreement. There have been plenty of occasions where comments have had to be removed on all sides of an issue.

So you just get rid of people? Just like that?

No. If a comment or post is out of line, providing it isn't overt spam or porn, we'll remove or hide it and let the poster know. If it's hidden, you'll have an opportunity to edit.  If someone continues to behave in ways that violate our Community Guidelines, then more severe action will be taken. This can include a temporary suspension, to give everyone a chance to cool down, but can include removal of an  account. This won't come out of the blue;  if someone is getting close to this, we'll let them know that choosing not to change their behavior will result in a suspension or removal.

It's not fair. People abuse the flagging system.

Flags are just one way we have of finding inappropriate content; they aren't the only method. Additionally, all flags are reviewed by the Community Team; if a flag is sent in for something that's not out of line it's not removed. We've talked about this before, so I'm not going to belabor the point, but flagging is not about retaliation or ratting people out. It's simply a way of letting us know there's something we might want to take a look at. Check out Mario's post for a great look at flagging.

I hope this helps address the issues that people have brought up--and we'll be continuing to post more blogs on this subject in the future, so stay tuned.

Steph

*This post is a day late due to lack of electricity caused by some funky weather in SF (winter? rain?! Ew.) However, I think we can all agree to happily celebrate this holiday a day late (hell, I celebrate this one every day).

If you couldn't tell from my title, I freaking love cheese. And since today is National Cheese Lover's Day (eeeee!), what better topic to discuss! Seriously though, aged, smelly, soft, hard, goat's, sheep's, cow's, you name it and it's a cheese I'd like to eat, right now please. All the best meals have cheese in them, and that's the God's honest truth: mac 'n cheese, pizza, grilled cheese, quesadillas, bagels and cream cheese, cheesecake (yes, it counts), eggs and cheese. OK, you get the idea, the point is that cheese is what makes all these things awesome and delicious and this world would be a sad place without it.

I could get all geeky on you guys and go into the history and fun facts of cheese, but I will restrain myself and instead leave you with this wonderful Cheese Chasers pod.

Cheese, I would chase you any day of the week. Te quiero.

Also, here's a little background on my title. You gotta do the hand thing too when you say it this way. I don't make the rules, I just follow 'em.

-Danielle

If you've been following our posts about the HP Photosmart VCAM winners and wondering how you can get involved and make a VCAM, you should head over and check out our new VCAM assignment for Lexus Hybrid Innovation.

The assignment:

Help us brand the Lexus ‘h’ by shedding light on great achievements. There are two ways to approach your VCAM:

a. Find a creative way to visualize Lexus’ “action speaks louder” philosophy behind the commitment to developing hybrids (‘h’) as outlined above.

b. Profile a person or organization that, just like Lexus, put creative thinking and innovative technology into action, breaking through barriers to achieve something great and unexpected. Demonstrate the alignment between Lexus’ philosophy and your subject.

The deadline to upload your VCAM is February 1st a 12pm (noon) Pacific, so don't delay! Our VCAM team has put together a list of tips to help you get started on your VCAM.

1. Join the assignment


2. Don't sell something else


3. Use humor carefully


4. This isn't about hybrid in general


5. This is not a normal car ad


6. This is not about advertising product features


7. Give meaning to the 'h'


8. Keep it snappy

Still have questions? Get more detail on these tips and fire up your cameras!

Steph

Last month we highlighted VCAM producer Nicholas Larimer's ad “Ready, Steady, Print” which was one of the four official selections by HP from their VCAM assignment featuring the new Photosmart Premium All-In-One printer, with Touchsmart Web.

This month, we're taking a look at Brad Backofen's ad, "Meet the Photosmart Premium" ad. Check it out:

What's a VCAM? Here's the details from our previous blogs:

For those unfamiliar with the concept VCAMs are Viewer Created Ad Messages, and the concept is pretty simple. We partner with sponsors to post assignments for our producer community. Our producers take the guidelines of the assignment, make a commercial, and potentially earn thousands of dollars if their ad gets picked by our sponsor.

In this case, the VCAM assignment was sponsored by HP. They provided our VCAM producer community with assets to use when creating commercials for their new printer, and our producers created advertisements for HP to choose from.

This time around we had a total of 87 submissions. HP narrowed the field to 10 videos, and four of these were selected by HP, earning them each $5000.

We’ll be back next month with another VCAM selection from HP.

Hey Currenters,

We have a scheduled release this evening, and we're going to try something new this time around. Our release is scheduled to begin at 7pm, and around this time Current.com will go into a brand new read-only mode. This means you'll still be able to browse stories, watch videos, and catch up on some comment reading on threads you've missed.

While in read-only mode, you won't be able to comment, vote, or submit stories. In fact, if you try to do any of these you will be prompted with a message.



We built read-only mode because we're going to be seeing some big releases in the coming months. Big releases often require scheduled downtime, but in the cases where we don't absolutely need to shut the entire site down, we figured a read-only will at least offer the ability to read stories and watch videos.

We'll keep the yellow bar message up on the homepage until the release is complete tonight.

Editor's Note: For a look back at some of our favorites from 2009, we asked Melody, Current's very own video expert to guest blog!

Happy holidays! After reflecting long and hard on the past year, the fine folks at Current pulled together our favorites from 2009, spanning music, viral videos, news and politics.  Whether you loved or hated this year, there’s a lot to talk about so let us know what you think!

Target Women: Lessons 2009
Sarah let’s us know why ladies are so lucky to be ladies, and how advertisers let them know, every day.

infoMania Editorial: 2009 – Worst Year Ever
Ben is not happy with 2009. Not happy at all.

Current News: Top 10 Stories of 2009
Andrew Fitzgerald recounts the top news stories on Current in 2009

Sergio’s White Hot Top 5: Hottest Jams of 2009
Sergio gives us a rundown of the top of pop music for 2009

Top Viral Videos of 2009
Want to finally understand those keyboard cat references? Brett Erlich let’s us know about the top viral videos of 2009

Top TV Clips of 2009
Conor Knighton delivers the best of the worst in news in 2009

We’d also like to note that iTunes has recognized a few of our podcasts as the Best of 2009! We’re loving the love and excited for the year to come. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to these podcasts so you can take us with you!

Rotten Tomatoes
infoMania
Target Women

Happy Holidays!
Melody

As 2009 winds down, it's time for everyone to start taking a reflective look back at the year. We'll be picking our own favorites here at Current, but we were thrilled to see that three Current shows made it onto iTunes Rewind 2009 picks for the best videos of the year! Congrats to The Rotten Tomatoes Show, Target Women, and infoMania for making the list! So, if you're looking for something to load up your iPod with before your trip home, why not check out some these looks at the year in review?

Share the Rotten Tomatoes Show Year Endies with your movie-buff brother:

Or check out infoMania's 2009 Retrospectacular

And download Target Women's Lessons 2009:

(If you haven't already, you should tell your Mom about Target Women. She'll love it. Promise.)

And, hey, if all else fails--put your headphones in and ignore the family squabbling while you get your dose of Current.

Steph

Move over Christmas,  Hannukah and Festivus, it's Chocolate Covered Anything Day. Because, unless you have no soul, this is a truly magical day that makes everyone happy. Covering just about anything in chocolate make it better. For example, is your holiday treat not caloric for you? Cover that sucker in chocolate and pow! Delicious calorie-city. Sick of your stupid Porsche being shiny instead of tasty? Problem solved.

Chocolate covered stuff can even be entertaining, see? (thanks lockergnome!) What once was icky, is now yummy and fun to watch being consumed. High five, chocolate, you've done it again.

So now, in honor of Chocolate Covered Anything Day, I want to know a weird chocolate covered thing you've eaten or seen covered in chocolate. Keep it clean, kids.

-Danielle

Last month we highlighted VCAM producer Mike Toofer's ad "No excuses," which was one of the four official selections by HP from their VCAM assignment featuring the new Photosmart Premium All-In-One printer, with Touchsmart Web.

This time around, we're taking a look at Nicholas Larimer's "Ready, Steady, Print" ad. Take a look:

What's a VCAM? Here's what I said last month:

For those unfamiliar with the concept VCAMs are Viewer Created Ad Messages, and the concept is pretty simple. We partner with sponsors to post assignments for our producer community. Our producers take the guidelines of the assignment, make a commercial, and potentially earn thousands of dollars if their ad gets picked by our sponsor.

In this case, the VCAM assignment was sponsored by HP. They provided our VCAM producer community with assets to use when creating commercials for their new printer, and our producers created advertisements for HP to choose from.

This time around we had a total of 87 submissions. HP narrowed the field to 10 videos, and four of these were selected by HP, earning them each $5000.

We'll be back next month with another VCAM selection from HP.

Hey community members,

We've just released some new changes to our story item pages, and I thought it might be a good idea to list some of these here. Alongside some submission tool bug fixes, we've released a fairly substantial change to story item layout. Here's a list of the changes:

1. We've made a significant change to font sizes in the item headlines, description, and comments.


2. Comments, views, and story submission date are all relocated. These pieces of information deserve more prominence, so we moved them up below the story headline. 


3. New "more from" module below item media.
   


4. The primary URL for a story is no longer anchored below the title of the story. We feel pretty strongly that a story can comprise of multiple URLs in the description, so making one URL directly associated with the headline seemed confusing. Now the primary URL for the story appears just above the description (below the image and the "more from" section).


5. The ID card (avatar and username) of the story submitter has been moved to the top of the page. Now you'll know who submitted the story you're reading with a quick glance at the top of the right rail.
   


6. Huge "share this" buttons below description. Now sharing with your favorite social network is easier than ever. Many people we spoke with never realized that we offered some of these options, so we've made them more prominent. Share away! 

We've also made a few changes to our methodology for handling profile removals on Current, but that deserves a blog of its own, so keep an eye out for more details.

Of course, we also want to know what you think of these changes! Leave a comment, shoot us an email at feedback(at)current(dot)com, or head over to our Get Satisfaction page to let us know.

mario

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="marijuana joint by Torben Bjørn Hansen on flickr"][/caption]

While the New Jersey legislature deliberates plans to legalize medical marijuana, and become the 14th state in the nation to do so, larger debates continue to looms. In one corner, defenders of legalization point to people like convicted MS-sufferer John Wilson, jailed for first degree maintaining or operating a drug production facility. His motivation for growing 17 pot plants in his backyard stemmed largely from his inability to afford the monthly cost of $2000 for prescription pain relief.

On the other side of the spectrum, medical and ethical questions have been raised. Does marijuana use cause cancer? What message does this send to children? Sure, it's a difficult debate to navigate, and in order to get anywhere in these murky waters, one must ask some other complex questions. Where does marijuana fall on the spectrum of recreational drug use? Is it any more egregious in comparison to alcohol or cigarette smoking? The desire to ease pain and suffering is an understandable argument, but it's also tough to justify in context of legalized substance use. And abuse.

Consider other legalized prescription drugs that have been co-opted for recreational use, and in turn resulted in an epidemic. I'm thinking, of course, of the overabundance of legal oxycontin and pain pill mills in South Florida which result in trafficking to areas like the Appalachian Mountains.

Our own Mariana Van Zeller filed a report on South Florida based oxycontin pill mills last October for Vanguard. One of the subjects in Mariana's report was Todd, an oxycontin addict whose family had been impacted by oxy abuse several times. Shortly after filming, Todd decided to quit abusing prescription drugs altogether. Through therapy and hard work, Todd has managed to stay oxy free. However, Todd still thinks about using, and frequently smokes marijuana.

Visit Vanguard on Current to watch the full episode of The OxyContin Express

Which brings us back to the legalization debate, and the values of marijuana for prescription use.

Certainly, nobody wants to see a replication of the pill mills in South Florida, but would the same situation develop with marijuana legalization? Amanda Reiman PhD from UC Berkeley has a supportive perspective regarding marijuana use based on findings that 65% of the people at the Berkeley Patient's Group use marijuana because it has less adverse side effects than alcohol, illicit or prescription pills.

“Substituting cannabis for alcohol has been described as a radical alcohol treatment protocol,” said Reiman. “This approach could be used to address heavy alcohol use. People might substitute cannabis, a potentially safer drug than alcohol with less negative side effects, if it were socially acceptable and available.”

We'll wait and see if New Jersey manages to push the medical marijuana legalization initiative through, until then John Wilson remains in prison awaiting trial, still suffering from the pains associated with MS. Sen. Lesniak has stated that he is going to urge Governor Jon Corzine to pardon Wilson before his trial begins.

Shop until you drop by robholland on flickr

It's the day before Thanksgiving, and everyone here at Current is poised to head home to prepare for family gatherings and celebrations. A quick look around the web, and it would appear that the majority of folks have other things on their minds right now.

Some of the top trending searches according to Google include queries about word of DJ Peachez's death, Debbie Schlussel's tirade about NBA sportscasters being yanked for the use of "Eye-Ran," and Adam Lambert's AMA Video awards.

But the rule of the day has largely been queries about "Black Friday." Scanning retailer specific queries is pretty telling:

1. Kmart Black Friday ad 2009


2. Black Friday Best Buy


3. Walmart Black Friday deals


4. Sears Black Friday sale


5. Toys R Us Black Friday


6. Cyber Monday deals

So much shopping! I find it interesting that Toys R Us appears so low on the list (at the time of post, it was the 14th most popular trend on Google). Sure, 14th place is nothing to shake a stick at, but consider "Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays" author Joel Waldfogel's perspective on things. Here's a snippet of an interview with Waldfogel, as conducted by Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace:

Ryssdal: I have to say this plays right into my prejudice here, because I'm just not a good holiday gift giver. But you say it actually doesn't make any sense.

WALDFOGEL: Well, the problem is, you know, normally we go out and buy things for ourselves, we'll only spend $50 if we find something that is worth at least $50 to us. But with gift giving, it's entirely different. You know, we're operating at an enormous handicap. We don't know what the other person wants or needs, so if I spend $50 on you, I might buy something that you wouldn't pay anything for.

Ryssdal: But I place value on that gift that you give me, right, so isn't there value there?

WALDFOGEL: You may place value on the fact that I gave you something. The problem is the actual thing I get you is something that you typically place less value on than the thing that you would have purchased with the same amount of money. So the spending doesn't produce as much satisfaction as we expect spending to produce.

So the cynic in me has to question, are people scouring the web in search of Black Friday deals really looking for gift ideas? Or, are they simply seeking deals on the stuff they want for themselves?

Either way, the overwhelming amount of commerce related queries still raises my age-old grudge with this endeavor, the collective focus around the Thanksgiving holiday never feels like its aimed in the right direction. What direction? Well, shouldn't these holidays really be about more important things like family, reflection, and appreciation? I think most of us eventually get there, once we've escaped the madcap craziness, and usually around a cleared table with full bellies.

But in the end, shouldn't we make a collective effort to re-focus this time towards what really matters, especially amidst a recession recovery effort? Here's my humble attempt to do so, with a prompt if you will:

What are your plans for Thanksgiving, and what are you thankful for?

Tell us what you think by submitting a story about your Thanksgiving plans and what you are thankful for over on Current.com -- extra bonus points if you do it in the form of a webcam or video.

Above all, have a wonderful holiday.

Related links:

1. Hasn’t this just been a whole year of Black Friday? – Real Recovery


2. Farm tour of a Local! Organic! Sustainable! Farm! That raises… Turkey!


3. The race to green Thanksgiving! (and other random thoughts on traditions, values, and the holidays)


4. Who you calling a turkey?


5. Thanksgiving Prayer William S Burroughs

I've been reading through some of the #fiestamovement tweets and blog posts from the agents, and @karakay's recent post, "End of Fiesta, Back to the Music" struck a chord (pardon the pun).

Many people supported my doing this contest, but many others weren't so excited about it. A few comments came my way stating, "this car promotion was distracting me from my music & a waste of time." While I understand how it could be seen that way I must say I think I gained quite a bit of knowledge in other areas of social media marketing that are going to help me as an independent artist. Things I had not much experience in, now I do. (Such as video editing.)

It's been a fun 6 months. Lots of inspiring events happened over the road that will be resulting in some new songs by this spring :) I did get to travel to a couple festivals and performed some shows this summer.

Six months is a long time to spend with a car while documenting the various adventures one might find themselves getting into. So I wonder, what else did these 100 agents learn while on the road? If you are an agent, send me a tweet @current, or leave a comment below. I'm curious to hear your perspective.

For those of you interested, take a look at some of the Fiesta Agents' profiles and vote for your favorite agent. The awards ceremony is on 12/1, so help your favorite agent get ahead of the pack.

Hey Fiesta Agents, do you want to be on TV?

Max and Jason will be covering the Fiesta Event at the LA Auto Show live on 12/1 (for info check out this post), and they'll be looking to capture the scene from the perspective of the agents in attendance. So agents, be on the lookout for our cameras, and tweet @current, @maxandjason, or using #current while you're at the Fiesta Event. Who knows, you might find yourself on TV!

As a part of their Fiesta Movement we're partnering with Ford to have Max and Jason bring you the Fiesta Movement Celebration on December 2nd at 11:30/10:30c on Current TV. Before we dive into the details, here's some background information to give you a little context.

To kickoff the Fiesta Movement, Ford challenged bloggers, technologists, and any other social media enthusiasts to spend six months participating in a campaign called the Fiesta Movement. They received over 4,000 applicants, but only 100 were chosen to be "Agents of the Fiesta Movement." These agents spent the next six months behind the wheel of a Ford Fiesta while traveling around the country completing 600 monthly themed missions ranging from Travel, Adventure, Social Activism, Technology, Style & Design, and Entertainment.

Each of these missions were documented using social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, 12seconds, and just about any other social media site out there. If your interested check out some of the missions, or if you're interested in what some of the agents are doing as their six month stint winds down take a look at the #fiestamovement hashtag on Twitter.

So, what are Max and Jason up to?

Here's the full rundown of what you can expect. On 12/1, the guys will be filming live at the Ford Fiesta Movement Celebration at the Palladium in LA between 11pm-2am E / 8pm-11pm P. They'll be spending the evening soaking up the event, and using Current cameras to get the unique perspective of the Fiesta Agents in attendance. Portions of their coverage will be streamed on the Max and Jason: Still Up page on Current.com, and live updates will also air on Current TV throughout the night.

Then on 12/2 Max and Jason will return to the Current airwaves to host the Fiesta Movement Celebration at 11:30/10:30c.

Today is International Men's Day! A day for men to rejoice in their man-ness; to chest bump, beer drink, and barbecue to their heart's content. Apparently the IMD website has other ideas about what International Men's Day should be about, BUT they do have informative links about the "Development of Manhood" (don't tell me you didn't giggle when you saw that. You did.)

Really though, men are super awesome, and so handy! I would probably have eaten only a third of the pickles in my lifetime if it hadn't been for some of the men in my life. (Sidenote: is it really necessary to vacuum seal those jars to the point of nearly cracking in on themselves from the pressure?)

However, if you don't think helping ladies who lack in upper body strength is what being a man is all about, there is... Movember! Ah, the month of mustache and a socially acceptable excuse to look uber creepy/sleazy for an entire month. And hey, you're raising money for prostate cancer, so if anyone gives you flack about your 'mo you get to make them look like a total jerk.

And since we're on the subject of awesomely hairy men, I leave you with this wonderful Rotten Tomatoes Show ditty, Ode to Chest Hair.

-Danielle

Got plans for tonight? Of course, you do--you're tuning into The Thursday Night Block Party on Current, right?

Tonight, Current is kicking off a brand-new season of SuperNews! at 11/10c. This season will include the return of fan favorites including technology obsessed office workers Craig and Darren, the beleaguered Obama administration, the self-obsessed hipsters and continued scathing satires of today’s political, pop-culture, and infamous figures.

But that's not all. The Thursday Night Block Party kicks off at 10/9c with a brand-new infoMania. This week, Sarah Haskins takes a look at home security in Target Women, so tune in to see her and the rest of the infoMania crew's take on the week in news and entertainment. Missed an episode? Check out previous infoMania episodes on Current.com.

Then att 10:30/9:30c, tune in for a new episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show. This week Brett and Ellen take on "Precious," "The Men Who Stare At Goats" and "A Christmas Carol." Watch previous episodes or leave a webcam with your review at The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current.com.

Finally, at 11/10c,  the new season of SuperNews! premieres.  Check out a sneak peek, or get a SuperNews primer on the SuperNews page.

Steph

If you've been staying on top of the news lately, it hasn't been a very fun past few days. Aside from the events at Fort Hood, we've seen reports of a second shooting incident in Orlando, an Assistant Principal held hostage at a school in New York, and (albeit more locally) the ongoing perils of a the daily commute through the SF Bay Bridge s-curve.

This is seriously heavy stuff. Thankfully, there are a few bright spots amongst the gloom. Depending upon which side of the fence you fall on, recent developments with the health care reform bill could be seen as a bright spot. But that is largely dependent upon your personal perspective. What about news we can all agree on?

Well, lucky for you I have a few good news-related gems to consider:

• >> Feed 18,000 Needy People? A Five-Year-Old Could Do It -- This is a great story about Phoebe Russell, a five-year-old student who raised money for the San Francisco Food Bank as part of a community service project, despite being told by her teacher that it "might be a bit ambitious for a five-year-old."


• >> The Yes Men Fix an Interview -- In an interview with Tonic.com, The Yes Men discuss their politically-charged antics as well as their new film, The Yes Men Fix the World.



• >> eBay WTF of the Day - Cat Eye Glasses for Jerks -- Ok, this isn't really news, but it's funny. I'm not sure which is more absurd, the fact that these glasses exist, or that someone is actually attempting to sell them on eBay. Only one way to one-up this one, someone purchase these ASAP.