Sherry Chandler

…from Howard Kurtz’s column in the Washington Post

YouTube.com [is] a shoot-it-yourself Web site that has exploded in popularity over the past year. And while many of the most widely viewed videos are merely intended to entertain or titillate — rants, parodies, pet tricks, soccer brawls, singing, dancing and booty shaking — company executives say politics is on the rise.

The site’s sixth most popular group — as measured by the number of people who click to subscribe — is titled “Bush Sucks,” with 2,018 members and 741 videos. Also near the top is “Nedheads,” with 841 members signing on to a group created by activists backing Ned Lamont in his Democratic primary race against Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

While bloggers played a role in the last presidential election, most advertising and message delivery still comes from campaigns, political parties and interest groups with enough money to bankroll a television blitz. But the YouTube revolution — which includes dozens of sites such as Google Video, Revver.com and Metacafe.com — could turn that on its head.

If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.

Here’s the video featured in the Kurtz column. It’s called “Stupid Bush:”

But in the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that Kurtz says you can also find videos that pillory Hillary.

Click the big arrow, and then the little one to get the video to play.

Another nice YouTube link up at I See Invisible People.

And there’s one at Heraclitean Fire, too. Not political, this one, or at least not overtly so.

And Shamash sends us a link to a Google video she made herself. It’s a great one.

…from this morning’s NYTimes, Renovations to a Study Room by Aalto Splits Harvard Faculty :

A renovation of a Harvard University poetry reading room designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto has drawn heated objections from architects and preservationists who say the room should be maintained exactly as Aalto created it.

The renovation of the 1,030-square-foot Woodberry Poetry Room, for which Aalto designed wooden screens, bookshelves, bentwood chairs, listening stations and organically shaped brass light fixtures, began on June 9. The room is scheduled to reopen on Sept. 11, around the start of the new school year.

Harvard officials say the renovation is a modest and practical one intended to replace broken chair legs, frayed wiring and a worn-out floor so that the room can remain in use. The room also lacks contemporary study space and modern technological capabilities, like the ability to play digital recordings and handle computers.

Opponents counter that Aalto’s signature fittings in the reading and listening room — one of four projects he carried out in the United States — should be restored, not altered. Change a piece here or there, these critics argue, and the whole is destroyed. “It represents a total design,” said Toshiko Mori, the chairman of the architecture department at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

…

The poetry room is named for George Edward Woodberry, a literary critic, poet and professor who graduated from Harvard in 1877. Intended as a place to read and listen to contemporary poetry, its original incarnation was in Widener Library in 1931. Aalto was commissioned to design a new room when the Lamont Library was built, in 1949.