When social networks permeate every minute aspect of your life, there's your Aladdin's lamp, my friend  

I left home yesterday in shorts and a t-shirt, didn't wash my face or brush my hair or shave my legs because I was only dashing out for 15 minutes to drop my son at the bus station. Except we missed the bus to Iowa State, and I got home eight hours later after a series of blunders worthy of an "I Love Lucy" episode blended with a chase scene accompanied by urgent music from the string section.

Aaron -- my younger son -- and I figure all the problems and the bus might have been stopped in their tracks if only it was 2013, when social networks will deliver us from nuisance, scarcity and all manner of care. Let me explain.

We felt sure we could beat the bus to DeKalb. After all, the station attendent said a student bus driver was at the wheel. She'd be extra careful and slow -- right? Nope we missed it there too, and missed it again another 130 miles or so later in Moline having risked stopping for gas because we thought we were so far ahead. We drove alongside the bus for a while in extreme frustration while hearing from Greyhound on the phone that there was no way to communicate with the driver. It was completely nuts. Funny, too.

It put us in the silly mood to pipedream the day when Aaron would have been invited to join a network of fellow riders when he bought his ticket online a week ago. We agreed that he would have struck up a special bond with a 40ish passenger named James who tagged an interest in bowling. He would have so admired Aaron's recent bowling score that we feel sure he'd have become Aaron's champion on board.

We could have twittered him (by this time groups would be de rigueur in Twitter) and James would have prevailed on the driver to pull over at a safe spot to allow Aaron to board.

Or maybe the driver initially would have insisted on following the rules but James might have rallied the other passengers, impressed as he was with Aaron's bowling prowess, and then there would be nothing the driver could do. Because who wants to be the Greyhound driver who goes down in history as inciting a mutiny. Not our speedy student driver, no sir. She'd have acceded eventually we feel very sure. And I'd have been home before dark.

Obama rumors only a pesky nuisance? Not sure.  

Blue State says correcting misinformation is Obama's real challenge.

I don't know if it's the real challenge or the most important one, but it is one challenge that I worry about. When I read about the percentage of voters who believe Obama is a Muslim, I worry that just brushing it off might not be doing enough. General election results can come down to a sliver of a hair of difference and it sure would be a shame if not tending to this problem ended up giving McCain the White House.

Those horrid e-mails passed from friend to friend have more power than impersonal mass media. Some of the smears are becoming so entrenched and repeated so often that otherwise honest people believe they're true, repeat them as fact.

See this video by a self-proclaimed Christian that teaches facts about Obama, including the mistake that Obama, not Keith Ellison, the Minnesota congressman, held the Koran when he was sworn in to Congress.

It does seem pointless to post comments under the videos at YouTube; that forum is a hopeless mindless mudpit. But in this case I did try to comment on the videomaker's profile page, and when that form didn't work, sent a personal message.

Objecting feels lame, like sputtering "But... but... but." But -- doesn't it have to be done?

The conch shell on Techcrunch 

The commenters on Steve Gillmor's posts at Techcrunch think they're voting to oust Steve from the masthead, or odder still, train him to write in some pre-chewed, bulleted web way that would not suit him. A comment on today's post says:

One would think a professional and obviously talented writer like Gillmor would take the widely-shared suggestion that his writing is hard to follow...

So, Mike Arrington needs to step in and let them know they don't get to vote. Leo LaPorte essentially said that following a show objected to by a similar community seeming to have a large share of little boys. Chris Pirillo is able to manage his little band pretty well, too. It works because the followers want the star's approval.

It might be too late. Techcrunch comments may be as irredeemable at this point as YouTube's or Digg's. Once you let a community go wild without a den mother it's hard to staunch that Lord of the Flies effect. I have to believe it devalues the media property because it exposes ignorance in the active visible audience.

We learned 20 years ago on Usenet and BBS's, then message boards, that a good leader in an online space can put policies in place that civilize a discussion without stifling free speech, to every participant's benefit and enjoyment.

Mike did nothing to tamp down awful sexist talk about a woman writer on Techcrunch and she fled to another job. He blamed his commenting community later, but never stepped up during the abuse to say "I don't approve of this." These boys admire him, I know it would do some good.