This Weeks Sound Off

The special treatment of STARS, such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, needs to end. Enough is enough with these two drug heads!

It amazes me that the privileged are able to escape justice while the common people pay dearly for their mistakes? Lindsay and Paris should have served her full sentence both in prison and rehab. And now with new charges pending these two should be sent to prison. Catering to these elitists is inexcusable. Justice is supposed to be blind and fair … unfortunately, this is not the case anymore.

It's time to throw the key away on these two losers/drug addicts and let them get of taste of reality ... now wouldn't this be a kewl reality show! Stars-n-Stripes ... LOL. I'm just saying.

Ragbag Headliners

Lindsay Lohan To Face Judge For Failed Drug Test

Lindsay Lohan acknowledged through Twitter postings Friday night that she failed a recent drug test, but the actress said she's "working hard to overcome" her drug addiction.

Lohan's supervised probation for a 2007 drunken driving conviction requires frequent drug tests. The judge warned her last month any failure could send her back to jail.

"Regrettably, I did in fact fail my most recent drug test and if I am asked, I am prepared to appear before judge Fox next week as a result," Lohan tweeted Friday evening.

She spent 23 days in a court-ordered drug rehab program last month, which followed a 13-day jail stint imposed when a Los Angeles judge ruled that Lohan violated her probation.

Judge Elden Fox, who took over Lohan's case when she was released, imposed a new set of rules for her to follow until November. It included weekly counseling sessions for alcohol and drug rehab, random drug tests and behavioral therapy.

Lohan's lawyer did not respond to CNN requests for comment Friday. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney also declined to comment.

No new court date has been announced for Lohan to face Judge Fox concerning the failed drug test. –CNN Entertainment

Push

Mirror

The Secret Power Of YouTube

Online video has gotten a bum rap. YouTube is often thought of as a home for juvenile idiocy, mindless narcissism and not much more. The collective 80 million hours we spend watching it every day seems to some like a terrible waste of human attention.

But if you dig under the surface, you can discover something much more hopeful. Hidden among all the cute kittens and pirated TV shows, online video is driving astonishing innovation in thousands of different fields ranging from the ultra-niche to the sharing of truly world-changing ideas.

In my TED talk, just posted, I point to numerous examples of this innovation, such as the dance revolution exemplified by a dance troupe called the LXD who played the Oscars this year. And I coin a term for it: crowd-accelerated innovation.

The term is new, but the process is old. Actually, this is pretty much the only type of innovation there has ever been. Contrary to the romantic myth, innovation doesn't suddenly emerge from lone geniuses and their eureka moments. It emerges when groups of people spark off each other. In history, progress took off when people came together in cities, and the scientific revolution took off when people around the world could read about each others' discoveries in print.

We're a social species. We spark off each other.

One of the most significant aspects of the Web is that it has connected vastly larger groups than ever before in history, and thereby sparked massive new types of innovation. For example, the open-source movement that created Linux and scores of other incredible pieces of software would not have been possible before the Web brought programmers together.

Similar explosions in innovation have happened in music, photography and animation, to name just three areas. But what these fields have in common is that people's work output could be easily shared digitally -- via still photographs, MP3 files, and software programs, for example. The reason online video is so significant is that it is now allowing the rest of the world's talents to be shared digitally. It's not just YouTube, of course, it's all over the Web.

In my talk, I explain that you need just three things in place for crowd-accelerated innovation to take off: a "Crowd," "Light" and "Desire."

Crowd: It can be any group, small or large, of people who share a common interest. The bigger the group, the better the chance that it contains real innovators. But successful crowds also depend on lots of other roles like trend-spotters, cheerleaders, commenters, and even skeptics.

Light: You need to be able to see what the very best people in the crowd are capable of. And the amazing thing about the Web is that even when the crowd is in the millions, the best contributors can readily bubble up to the surface -- for example, by winning the most views or highest ratings on a website.

Desire: On the Web, this is provided through social recognition. If you can do something innovative and special, you get thousands of people viewing your work and talking about you. It's intoxicating. And it's driving hundreds and hundreds of hours of effort from potential innovators across the globe.

The rise of online video has vastly expanded the Crowd, shone a brighter Light on the best talent, and dialed up the Desire by offering participants a form of global fame. Someone sees a video with 50,000 views and thinks, "That's awesome, I'll copy it and take it to the next level." They emulate, then they innovate, and the bar gets raised again and again.

We've noticed it on our website http://www.ted.com/. Ever since we started posting TED talks online, speakers have started raising their game. They could see what great TED talks looked like. And they had a greater motivation to shine. So the amount of preparation going into each talk rose dramatically. But the phenomenon is everywhere, and it has the potential to transform any organization and give an amazing platform to any individual.

I'm convinced that the latest iteration of crowd-accelerated innovation, fueled by Web video, is about to ignite the biggest learning cycle in human history. There are huge implications for the future of global education. Tomorrow's best teachers will be global stars reaching literally millions of kids. And talented students around the world will no longer have their potential destroyed by lousy teachers. They can learn directly from the world's finest.

My talk ends with an incredible video shot in Africa's biggest slum, which turns out to be teeming with innovation, innovation that in past years would have simply remained invisible to the rest of the world. If we're in an age where the TED audience can learn from residents of a slum and vice versa, there's reason to be hopeful for our future.

Reaction to the talk has been intense. It's sparked dozens of comments and loads of new ideas. But what do you think? Have you had an instance where Web video has taught you something important or provoked you to action? Have you made videos yourself, and has the process of making them motivated you to innovate? If so, I'd love to hear from you. I will be reading every comment submitted below. –CNN Opinion

Head Scratch

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An Old Film Clip From San Fransico

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The 104-year-old 35-mm film of San Francisco was the very first 35mm film ever taken. The shot was filmed via a camera mounted on the front of a cable car. It was originally thought to have been taken in 1905, but it was later learned that the "silent movie" was actually shot only four days before the Great San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906. The film was shipped to New York for processing. For many years, the film was "lost". After it was "found", David Kiehn from the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot based on historical records. According to New York trade papers, the film which showed wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicated the time of year and the actual weather conditions, The historical records also included the date(s) when the cars were registered, who owned the cars, and when the plates were issued.

The number of automobiles must have been "staggering" by 1906 standards. And the traffic in San Francisco in the early 1900s as seen on the film was amusing [if not amazing]; with cable cars, horse-drawn carriages, private vehicles, and pedestrians weaving whichever way on the streets, one has to wonder about traffic accidents. Also, one must imagine the number of street cleaners ["poop scoopers"] employed to pick up after the horses---talk about going green! The film showed the clock tower at the end of Market Street at the Embarcadero/the Fisherman's Wharf.

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Cee Lo's YouTube Hit You Won't Hear On Radio

Note: The video below contains language that may be unsuitable for some.

The soul and hip-hop singer Cee Lo Green has a penchant for beautiful music with a dark subtext.

In 2006, as half of Gnarls Barkley, his angelic voice sounded a little unhinged on the huge hit "Crazy." The song's surreal video had Cee Lo and partner Danger Mouse appearing within blurry ink smudges like a moving, threatening Rorschach test. The clip was watched by 5 million YouTubers.

Now Cee Lo is back with a new song that is just as melodic and nutty -- although in its current form, not quite as radio-ready. Its title is "F**k You!", which also happens to be its chorus, and it's an angry kiss-off toward a lover who has left for a richer man.

During the chorus, the expletive rolls off Cee Lo's tongue like he's saying grace, but the lyrics are instantly relatable to anyone who's been scorned: "I guess he's an Xbox and I'm more Atari, but the way you play your game ain't fair."

And people will remember the lyrics, because that's all the video is -- a bunch of words flashing on the screen. "F**k You!" mixes up the text size and occasionally changes background colors. Beyond that, however, it's basically just video karaoke -- a bold choice considering any controversy over the song was sure to be about its words.

According to a New York Times article, the no-frills video was rushed out as a placeholder before a more elaborate clip could be created.

The video garnered more than 3 million views in the past week -- a big number considering the song has gotten no radio play. The tune also was No. 26 Monday on iTunes' top-selling songs list.

Watch the video and try not to sing along by the time the second chorus hits, especially with those "ooh, ooh, ooh"s that sound like some outtake from the '50s soul group biopic "The Five Heartbeats". Cee Lo's video is already spawning imitations, most notably an homage (parody?) remix by hip-hop bad boy 50 Cent.

Cee Lo also has recorded a sanitized version of the song, "Forget You!" which has been played on the radio in England but not in the U.S., according to the Times.

Something tells me that version, if and when it hits the web, won't be nearly so popular. –CNN Tech

Here’s the no no video.

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“FUCK YOU” by Cee Lo Green

“Smile” by Barbra Streisand

Bill of Rights Rap!

“The Impossible Dream” by Luther Vandross

Banned Rape Commercial

Remembering!

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Ragbag Headliners

Fantasia Barrino: Why I Attempted Suicide

The fallout over Fantasia Barrino's relationship with Antwaun Cook wasn't the only reason the singer felt driven to suicide recently. In fact, her depression dates back to her stint on "American Idol" in 2004, the singer now says.

"When I was on 'Idol' ... they weren't really looking at my gift," Barrino, 26, who was named season 3 champ, told Gayle King on her radio show Tuesday.

"[Producers] were focusing on all the bad things I had done before I made it there," she said. "I have feelings, you know. I'm human."

As she recalled, the stint on "Idol," followed by a home foreclosure, a throat tumor she developed in 2008 while on Broadway in "The Color Purple" and business troubles, including mismanaged money, deepened her depression.

"There were people coming after me who had already done me wrong," Barrino told King.

Even potential bright spots in her career, like releasing her autobiography, which she adapted into a TV movie, stung.

"[After] putting out my Lifetime movie and my book ['Life Is Not a Fairy Tale'], [people] picked certain things in the book, [saying], 'She's illiterate, she's dumb,' " Barrino recalled.

"[And] I had to sit and hear comedians crack their jokes," she said, "and certain people say what they had to say." –CNN Entertainment

See full article at people.com

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