Everyone, from elementary school students to investment bankers, knows the power of Google and how it’s changed and reshaped the way almost everything is done today — media, finance, homework, job-hunting, intellectual property, etc. Marveling at Google has become such a cliche that I hesitate to even bring it up, but recently I’ve seen still more evidence of its overwhelming influence.

Since our recent upgrade of our website to finally get more in line with existing standards of search engine compatibility, we’ve noticed that every time we post a celebrity’s name, we get a big uptick in site visits through search engines. We especially saw this phenomenon come into play with our recent coverage of the Savannah Film Festival. (And make no mistake: People all over the world are doing Google searches for “Michael Douglas.” A lot of people.)

When you see the numbers on this, all of a sudden you understand why it’s so difficult for the media to resist covering celebrities instead of issues. If you’re constantly being told by your company to maximize your internet presence and revenue, and then you see what happens when you post the name of a celebrity, well… only a fool doesn’t do the math, even if it’s just in their head.

To me it just proves what I’ve suspected all along: The media covers celebrities because covering celebrities gets more readers and more viewers. That’s not to condone it, but the next time you ask yourself “Why the @#$% is Britney Spears always on my TV?” think about what I’m writing here and you won’t wonder anymore.

Another addictive phenomenon is the sheer speed and ease with which Google allows influential websites to link to you if they choose. The biggest fish I’ve managed to hook so far — quite unintentionally — was mediabistro.com, which featured a snip from my Festival interview with Charlie Rose and a link back to the full story, within hours of it being posted here. I’ll certainly take a shout-out and a link from Mediabistro anyday. But not everyone understands the concept of the “fair use” copyright doctrine, though.

As part of our Film Festival coverage I interviewed Jim Tusty, director/producer of the documentary The Singing Revolution, which deals with a chapter in the history of the Baltic nation of Estonia. I didn’t know much about Estonia before the interview, but here’s one thing I learned soon after that article was posted on our website: Estonians are really, really passionate about their country. I mean, whatever you do, don’t mess with Estonia.

Thanks to Google’s diligent bots, the Tusty interview immediately started aggregating on all kinds of Estonian websites — including the actual Estonian embassy. And by “immediately,” I mean within a couple of hours, if that. Link after link, all featuring my interview (almost always copied in full) and my name (well, at least they remembered to lift that also while they were at it).

I’m happy I was able to provide so much pleasure for our Estonian readers all around the globe, I really am. And I admit it’s a kick to see my name and work being read in such a range of international venues, and by people who obviously care so much. And connectsavannah.com got some love as well, with a lot of hits back from those same Estonian websites. Any writer would feel validated by this. But I was left with a certain Pandora’s Box feeling about it as well….

The same thing happened with my interview with John Hennegan, director of the doc The First Saturday in May. It immediately began making the rounds on any website having anything to do with horseracing — also copied in full and with the small compensation of featuring my byline.

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’m a respected Estonia expert and horseracing correspondent. Who knew?

Thing is, all that’s totally illegal. Like, big-time illegal. College students are getting successfully sued by corporations for thousands of dollars, just for downloading a few songs. Taking the intellectual property of a media company like ours, Morris Multimedia, and running it in full without permission at your outlet is — well, it’s theft, pure and simple. But therein lies the dilemma: You can’t sue the whole world, and who really wants to put Google out of business? We all need it too much.

Epilogue: Of all those links I got, page after page of Google hits, only one person called to ask permission to republish a story — the editor of the Mid-Atlantic Racing News, who wanted to run the Hennegan interview. Impressed that he’d even bothered to call, I just said: Make sure you credit Connect Savannah — and make sure you spell my name right.

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If you saw this in a movie, you’d say it was too unbelievable.

But believe it: Your governor, who was re-elected with 60 percent of the vote of your fellow citizens, has an answer to Atlanta’s looming water shortage: Pray for rain.

And he just made his plan official by sending it out on government letterhead as official policy. Here it is verbatim, your tax dollars at work:

Governor Perdue to Host Prayer Vigil for Rain

ATLANTA – Governor Sonny Perdue will hold a public prayer vigil to pray for rain on the front steps of the State Capitol (Washington Street entrance) TUESDAY, November 13, 2007.

WHO: Governor Sonny Perdue

Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle

Representative Melvin Everson

Dr. Gil Watson, Senior Minister, Northside United Methodist Church

Dr. Maurice Watson, Senior Pastor, BeulahLand Bible Church

Dr. Benny Tate, Senior Pastor, Rock Springs Church

Mr. Ken Morrow, Member, Governor’s Agricultural Advisory Commission

WHAT: Prayer Vigil

WHEN: TUESDAY, November 13, 2007

11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Front Steps/Washington Street Entrance (Outdoors)

State Capitol

Atlanta, Georgia

I am not making this up. This just came into my inbox. This is your government and this is the best they can do. How do you feel about this? Nothing wrong with prayer, but is it a viable substitute for policy?

Keep in mind that Perdue is the same privatizing corporate crony who spearheaded our awful natural gas deregulation when he was in the General Assembly, who just tried to give away Jekyll Island to an upscale developer, and who in his years in the governor’s mansion has done absolutely nothing to rein in the extravagant suburban sprawl that has engulfed the entire northern half of the state, which is now nearly out of drinking water largely due to the state’s failure to plan.

And now that the excrement has hit the fan, Perdue’s solution is to do a rain dance?

Frankly I don’t know which Republican goofball is worse: Perdue, or his nemesis, House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who wants to replace property taxes with a sales tax, i.e., hello $8 a gallon milk. Between the two of them it’s making me seriously examine the job markets in other states — the ones that aren’t so damn red.

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Not only did the Redgrave family — Vanessa, Lynn and Corin — accept Lifetime Achievement Awards Saturday night at the Savannah Film Festival, they made history as well. According to their own admission, this was the first time in their long, illustrious careers that all three siblings have sat down together in one place to give interviews.

Thanks to the auspices of SCAD, I was lucky enough to be one of the fortunate few journalists on hand for the landmark occasion earlier that day. Thanks again to the College not only for putting on such a professional, high-quality event, but for reaching out to local media as well.

As you might expect from members of the world’s premiere theatrical dynasty, you don’t so much interview the Redgraves as watch them perform. On one end of a line of stools sits Vanessa, the outspoken political sister, searing every verbal point into you with her burning blue eyes. On the other end sits Lynn, the “softer,” Americanized sister, speaking of her home in Connecticut.

Between them sits brother Corin — who might actually be the most political of the three — in a state of Zen-like calm, obviously accustomed to his sisters’ constant, overlapping interplay and resigned to the utter futility of trying to upstage them.

Here’s Vanessa, known for her support for controversial causes, on the resurgence of the political documentary:

“More audiences than ever before are looking at documentaries, which they used to never watch because they were only shown very late at night, or in a tiny little art house,” she says.

“If you look at the viewing figures for Supersize Me or any of Michael Moore’s films, I don’t think you can say you’re preaching to the converted,” Vanessa continues. “You have to say that more and more people, millions more people, are becoming hungry to know and are wanting to see — and are paying money to see — films that are presenting certain aspects of the world we’re living in.”

Here’s Lynn on the current state of live theatre in the U.S.:

“The fact is there’s some wonderful work being done in regional theatres all over the States. The big problem is ticket prices in New York, that’s just prohibitive,” she says. “I wish more and more theaters would do like regional theatres do, where they pick a matinee or pick certain days of the week when they’ll give a whole bunch of cheap seats away, so people who can’t afford those ticket prices can go.”

The subject that seemed to get all three most impassioned was the importance of the arts in the school system. Here’s Lynn:

“Where I live, there’s a program at my grandchildren’s public school called Arts Alive, where they get little kids to the theatre in Hartford or New York or Danbury, and also bring artists into the schools. The more the government has pulled back on arts funding in schools, the more outraged parents are. Arts Alive in Connecticut is an absolute result of disgust at the lack of arts allowed into the public schools,” Lynn says. “So parents are saying, ‘OK, then, damn it, we’re going to create it ourselves and it’ll be for everybody.’”

To which Vanessa responds:

“This is happening more and more and more — people, whether they’re parents or teachers or members of other professions, have realized that arts are vital to a forward-looking and thriving community.”

But quiet Corin is suddenly not so quiet, and offers the most assertive point:

“We have to be absolutely adamant that money, public money, state money, has to be provided for theatre at all levels, and not just the capital city or the major cities, but in small towns, too. And that has to be an absolute commitment which we demand from political parties — otherwise they can’t even claim to be political parties!” he says. “We believe that the theatre, from its earliest example in England, and its very earliest example in Greece, is an essential part of human society.”

A pause, then Vanessa laughs and proclaims majestically with a wave of her arm: “There you go, that’s it, that’s a good answer!”

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OK, if you read my Editor’s Note this week you saw the three Picnic winners plus the Best Family winner. Here are some more picnic shots from last Sunday night:

This is one of two Oktoberfest-themed picnics, complete with this guy breading and sauteeing authentic wienerschnitzel on a gas stove:

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Here’s the 1920s-themed “Speakeasy” picnic:

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Of course the requisite Halloween picnic, complete with “Severed Hand Punch”:

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Baldwin Park hosted a Living Chess Match, reenacted on a sheet painted in a checkerboard pattern. Here’s Robert as a bishop with one of the white knights:

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Here’s a shot of the actual chess match which the living pieces were reenacting:

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The moves of the chess match were passed on by “caller” James, seen here:

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The “Hollywood” picnic featured guests dressed as celebrities. Here’s you-know-who:

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Not that it’s a big surprise, but retired Army Lt. Colonel Bill Gillespie is officially announcing he’ll run as a Democrat against District 1 Congressman Jack Kingston, a long-serving Republican who now finds himself in the minority after many years.

Here’s Gillespie:

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Here’s the info on his announcement:

Where: Tybee Island, 1110 Laurel Avenue

When: Oct. 7 at 2:00 p.m.

Kingston typically gets well over 60 percent of the vote in his district, which like a lot of districts was designed to pool as many people of one party together in one place. It is by no means what you would call competitive.

I’m not one that thinks Hillary on the ticket will hurt Democratic officeholders down-ballot in southern states. My take is that the people who hate, hate, hate Hillary have done so for awhile and were never going to vote Democratic anyway.

On the other hand, a Clinton at the top of the Dem ticket — perhaps with Obama as VP — will boost African-American turnout in the south to absolute record levels. I don’t think this will make the difference for Gillespie, because the black population in the First District is not so high, but it’s a factor none of the so-called national experts have touched on yet.

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