Politics dead? The string of protests against the WTO, IMF, World Bank, WEF, etc -- this is politics. Super-rallies for Ralph Nader where 10,000+ average citizens pay to see a presidential candidate -- this is politics.
The problem here, Jon, is that you're using the word "politics" as a shorthand for "professional politics as usual". But the real politics these days isn't to be found coming from the power elites. That's pageantry, not politics.
Ok, this is confusing to me. Wasn't there once an outcry over the existence of the VCR, or dual-deck audiotape recorders, because they might be used to copy copyrighted information?
The remarks of the U.S.Secretary of Education were made in conjunction with the release of the department's Safeguarding Our Children action guide.
Note on that page two important things:
the term he uses is "mechanical profiling", not "behavioral profiling" -- which sounds more like automated profiling like Mosaic 2000 than anonymous tip lines like WAVE
he also says that schools "should make sure that all school staff and community members know the early warning signs, use them for identification and referral purposes", which sounds pretty close to what Pinkerton would claim WAVE America is all about
So, this story is perhaps relevant to the WAVE problem, it doesn't necessarily reflect totally good news. I suppose reading the action guide itself will let us know for sure.
It's not merely a matter of fair use, I suspect. In my experience many, if not most, "public" forms of this sort tend to retain a "collected work" right. I imagine that between collected work rights and fair use rights, there might be room for the way this was done.
This is all kind of odd, becos I received the initial posting to ICANN members (but not last night, it was several days ago), and never received anything else.
Dyson continually strikes me as someone who is used to getting her way and being in charge. Which is fine in and of itself, I suppose, but when trying to create a defacto non-governmental "government", being dismissive of (if not outright assholic in response to) people's concerns is the wrong temperament to have. Given what ICANN is at least in theory supposed to become, for it to be headed by someone who looks upon what is essentially her constituency with a kind of derision, and with a disdain for doing anything to reflect accountability to that constituency is boneheaded in the extreme.
She can feel like she's right all the time if she wants to. But in what needs to be treated as a role representing the Internet community, she needs to learn how to not respond to questions or criticisms with comments like the one she made in Cairo, dismissing questions and criticism as mere annoying complaints distracting her from the real work at hand.
Sorry, Esther, but if you're representing a community of people, part of your real work is listening to their criticisms and even complaints with respect, not scorn and ridicule. If you can't do that, you need to step down.
Interesting how even the web guy apparently knows how to dodge a question, namely BOredAtWork's comments about being unable to locate anything but fluff on the Gore site.
When Gore's webman managed to avoid addressing is a very real concern -- both for citizens who "get" the net and want to use it politically, and for politicians who can't seem to "get" the net and treat it like other media.
Perhaps almost more than any other people, politicians should be trying to put online as many different levels of information about themselves as is humanly possible. So if John Smith of Pocatello, Idaho, wants a press release, he can find it there. But if l33tgurl from dsl.org wants a full document with fact, figures, charts, and financial particulars, she can find that as well.
This is a serious issue, in terms of politics and the Internet. It, and BOredAtWork deserved a more respectful response.
On local-level activity: One of the things my soon-to-be-defunct cybercafe became known for was its annual Readings of Declaration event on July 4 -- in fact, for the first year's coverage in the newspaper, all the local fireworks and picnics got lumped into a single big article on one side of page one of the metro section, while an equally-sized articleon the right side was all about our event.
Many newspapers, or at least certain reporters, would kill for a chance to speak about these issues in a fresh context that makes it real for people. Our event gave them one (readings of U.S. founding documents and other writings, such as a Zapatista proclamation, Declaration of Human Rights, etc.)
Personally, I'd still like to see a nationwide network of such readings on July 4 next year. A calculated and planned, coast to coast set of events designed to make the issues under the First Amendment and other sources very real and in front of people.
The reason why public financing might be the only way to go, if we can ever figure out how to make it work, since you have the problem of determining who is a "valid" enough candidate to receive the money, is because the Supreme Court keeps saying that money equals speech, which means a First Amendment problem comes up when we try to restrict or ban the flow of money into political party hands.
Personally, let's just not allow people to ever personally have enough money to ever be able to buy more electoral power than anyone else.;)
First off, you stay informed -- thorugh sites like the Freedom Forum, Wired News, the ACLU, and even Slashdot. The ACLU in particular is the best firstbet to both staying informed and participating in "average Joe" armchair activism, mainly thorugh their Alert list, which often contains links to pages at the ACLU website where you can send free faxes to your Congressional representatives on a variety of pressing issues.
More, start finding the sources for keeping track of First Amendment issues locally where you live. Big national issues get decent attention sometimes, but local issues (often, these days, based around youth) do not. Not to come back to ACLU again, but it wouldn't hurt to join your state chapter.
Interestingly, the ASME site includes a set of guidelines for editors and publishers; of these guidelins, the ASME site says this: "In the interest of helping editors, publishers and advertisers maintain an industry-wide standard that helps preserve the distinction between advertising and editorial, ASME has expanded the guidelines to include Internet sites, custom publishing and marketing joint promotions."
Interesting that they are willing to expand their editing and publishing guidelines to include the net, but won't accept net-based publications into actual membership (and therefore, presumably, into the decision-making process about these guidelines).
Visit that link and you'll get the general idea. What we need you to do is send me URLs for geek and/or youth sites relevant to this campaign -- and also URLs to media stories that bother to report on this aspect of it all. The idea, as the page suggests, is to have something of a central link repository for stories and personal tales and sites that we can all use to keep these voice heard online and, perhaps especially, off.
Email b!X with anything you've got that's relevant.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
Why do kids kill? Because if a culture tells any group, loudly enough and for long enough, that they are immoral and misshapen, then sooner or later, they will begin to act immoral and misshapen. Events like these are what our culture gets when it wages a perpetual war against the young.
Out of curiosity, have the Thieme detactors dug around into his part work or are they merely making immediate judgements based upon the first couple of pieces here? Thieme has always been rather hit-or-miss for me, but taken as a whole, worth reading at least now and again.
If you've followed Katz's writings online for some time, you know that he's always had a thing for geeks and their culture(s). While it is of course legitimate to be a geek who doesn't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the world thinks about geeks or hears about geeks, the fact of the matter is that it's a near miracle that a middle-aged guy in New Jersey who originally came up thru the ranks of traditional mass media journalism -- and who therefore, to an extent, has a degree of credibility "out there" -- has championed the energy and vibrance of everything from kid's rights to geek culture.
Don't knock it. It's not about having an ambassador, it's about having a friend who can deliver a sort of "the kids are alright, leave em alone" message to the outside world.
ChrisMul said:...any limiting of comments is a form of censorship, though not necessarily in a bad way... -- but this isn't strictly true.
While on the one hand I tend to abhor, for example, corporate/private restrictions on speech, and think it's a dangerous area that eneds watching, it's justn ot true that any and all forms of moderation or editorial input can be dumped into some wide-sweeping definition of "censorship".
It's important to retain the rhetorical impact of labelling something or someone a censor. It shouldn't be used lightly, and it's not like we can't discuss the pros and cons of moderation or editorialism without resorting to calling everyone a censor. In fact, it's kind of argumentatively lazy to just throw that word around.
Oddly, it seems to be in the air. The owner of one mailing list I'm on recently and temporarily gagged two posters, and ppl wigged out, as if jackbooted government thugs had just barged into their homes and stolen their secret printing presses in the basement.
At the same time, a new policy of account-suspension was just launched on a chat server I hang out on, and ppl wigged out over there too. Interestingly, that particular case echoed some of Jon Katz's sentiments about how constant bullying of new people in effect silences those new people becos it's just not worth it.
All in all, it's rather astonishing how well Slashdot manages to perform this experiment in using software combined with people to try to speak both to individual freedom and choice as well as to some sense of common good or social contract. Few other places online seem to strive so hardcore towards trying to fulfill both needs at once.
Slashdot Mirror
Politics dead? The string of protests against the WTO, IMF, World Bank, WEF, etc -- this is politics. Super-rallies for Ralph Nader where 10,000+ average citizens pay to see a presidential candidate -- this is politics.
The problem here, Jon, is that you're using the word "politics" as a shorthand for "professional politics as usual". But the real politics these days isn't to be found coming from the power elites. That's pageantry, not politics.
Meanwhile: VOTE OR DIE!
Ok, this is confusing to me. Wasn't there once an outcry over the existence of the VCR, or dual-deck audiotape recorders, because they might be used to copy copyrighted information?
What the hell is the inherent different here?
The remarks of the U.S.Secretary of Education were made in conjunction with the release of the department's Safeguarding Our Children action guide.
Note on that page two important things:
So, this story is perhaps relevant to the WAVE problem, it doesn't necessarily reflect totally good news. I suppose reading the action guide itself will let us know for sure.
It's not merely a matter of fair use, I suspect. In my experience many, if not most, "public" forms of this sort tend to retain a "collected work" right. I imagine that between collected work rights and fair use rights, there might be room for the way this was done.
In response to the arrogance of James Billington, GEEK Force has launched the Worst Features campaign. Included at that page is GEEK Force's own letter to the Library of Congress.
See GEEK Force's WAVE Bye-Bye Campaign.
This is all kind of odd, becos I received the initial posting to ICANN members (but not last night, it was several days ago), and never received anything else.
Dyson continually strikes me as someone who is used to getting her way and being in charge. Which is fine in and of itself, I suppose, but when trying to create a defacto non-governmental "government", being dismissive of (if not outright assholic in response to) people's concerns is the wrong temperament to have. Given what ICANN is at least in theory supposed to become, for it to be headed by someone who looks upon what is essentially her constituency with a kind of derision, and with a disdain for doing anything to reflect accountability to that constituency is boneheaded in the extreme.
She can feel like she's right all the time if she wants to. But in what needs to be treated as a role representing the Internet community, she needs to learn how to not respond to questions or criticisms with comments like the one she made in Cairo, dismissing questions and criticism as mere annoying complaints distracting her from the real work at hand.
Sorry, Esther, but if you're representing a community of people, part of your real work is listening to their criticisms and even complaints with respect, not scorn and ridicule. If you can't do that, you need to step down.
Interesting how even the web guy apparently knows how to dodge a question, namely BOredAtWork's comments about being unable to locate anything but fluff on the Gore site.
When Gore's webman managed to avoid addressing is a very real concern -- both for citizens who "get" the net and want to use it politically, and for politicians who can't seem to "get" the net and treat it like other media.
Perhaps almost more than any other people, politicians should be trying to put online as many different levels of information about themselves as is humanly possible. So if John Smith of Pocatello, Idaho, wants a press release, he can find it there. But if l33tgurl from dsl.org wants a full document with fact, figures, charts, and financial particulars, she can find that as well.
This is a serious issue, in terms of politics and the Internet. It, and BOredAtWork deserved a more respectful response.
On local-level activity: One of the things my soon-to-be-defunct cybercafe became known for was its annual Readings of Declaration event on July 4 -- in fact, for the first year's coverage in the newspaper, all the local fireworks and picnics got lumped into a single big article on one side of page one of the metro section, while an equally-sized articleon the right side was all about our event.
Many newspapers, or at least certain reporters, would kill for a chance to speak about these issues in a fresh context that makes it real for people. Our event gave them one (readings of U.S. founding documents and other writings, such as a Zapatista proclamation, Declaration of Human Rights, etc.)
Personally, I'd still like to see a nationwide network of such readings on July 4 next year. A calculated and planned, coast to coast set of events designed to make the issues under the First Amendment and other sources very real and in front of people.
The reason why public financing might be the only way to go, if we can ever figure out how to make it work, since you have the problem of determining who is a "valid" enough candidate to receive the money, is because the Supreme Court keeps saying that money equals speech, which means a First Amendment problem comes up when we try to restrict or ban the flow of money into political party hands.
Personally, let's just not allow people to ever personally have enough money to ever be able to buy more electoral power than anyone else. ;)
First off, you stay informed -- thorugh sites like the Freedom Forum, Wired News, the ACLU, and even Slashdot. The ACLU in particular is the best firstbet to both staying informed and participating in "average Joe" armchair activism, mainly thorugh their Alert list, which often contains links to pages at the ACLU website where you can send free faxes to your Congressional representatives on a variety of pressing issues.
More, start finding the sources for keeping track of First Amendment issues locally where you live. Big national issues get decent attention sometimes, but local issues (often, these days, based around youth) do not. Not to come back to ACLU again, but it wouldn't hurt to join your state chapter.
Interestingly, the ASME site includes a set of guidelines for editors and publishers; of these guidelins, the ASME site says this: "In the interest of helping editors, publishers and advertisers maintain an industry-wide standard that helps preserve the distinction between advertising and editorial, ASME has expanded the guidelines to include Internet sites, custom publishing and marketing joint promotions."
Interesting that they are willing to expand their editing and publishing guidelines to include the net, but won't accept net-based publications into actual membership (and therefore, presumably, into the decision-making process about these guidelines).
Americans for Radio Diversity and Radio 4 All are where to go to learn more ont his from a src other than just the FCC.
GEEK Force seeks your assistance with The Hellmouth Campaign.
Visit that link and you'll get the general idea. What we need you to do is send me URLs for geek and/or youth sites relevant to this campaign -- and also URLs to media stories that bother to report on this aspect of it all. The idea, as the page suggests, is to have something of a central link repository for stories and personal tales and sites that we can all use to keep these voice heard online and, perhaps especially, off.
Email b!X with anything you've got that's relevant.
Why do kids kill? Because if a culture tells any group, loudly enough and for long enough, that they are immoral and misshapen, then sooner or later, they will begin to act immoral and misshapen. Events like these are what our culture gets when it wages a perpetual war against the young.
Out of curiosity, have the Thieme detactors dug around into his part work or are they merely making immediate judgements based upon the first couple of pieces here? Thieme has always been rather hit-or-miss for me, but taken as a whole, worth reading at least now and again.
If you've followed Katz's writings online for some time, you know that he's always had a thing for geeks and their culture(s). While it is of course legitimate to be a geek who doesn't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the world thinks about geeks or hears about geeks, the fact of the matter is that it's a near miracle that a middle-aged guy in New Jersey who originally came up thru the ranks of traditional mass media journalism -- and who therefore, to an extent, has a degree of credibility "out there" -- has championed the energy and vibrance of everything from kid's rights to geek culture.
Don't knock it. It's not about having an ambassador, it's about having a friend who can deliver a sort of "the kids are alright, leave em alone" message to the outside world.
ChrisMul said: ...any limiting of comments is a form of censorship, though not necessarily in a bad way... -- but this isn't strictly true.
While on the one hand I tend to abhor, for example, corporate/private restrictions on speech, and think it's a dangerous area that eneds watching, it's justn ot true that any and all forms of moderation or editorial input can be dumped into some wide-sweeping definition of "censorship".
It's important to retain the rhetorical impact of labelling something or someone a censor. It shouldn't be used lightly, and it's not like we can't discuss the pros and cons of moderation or editorialism without resorting to calling everyone a censor. In fact, it's kind of argumentatively lazy to just throw that word around.
Oddly, it seems to be in the air. The owner of one mailing list I'm on recently and temporarily gagged two posters, and ppl wigged out, as if jackbooted government thugs had just barged into their homes and stolen their secret printing presses in the basement.
At the same time, a new policy of account-suspension was just launched on a chat server I hang out on, and ppl wigged out over there too. Interestingly, that particular case echoed some of Jon Katz's sentiments about how constant bullying of new people in effect silences those new people becos it's just not worth it.
All in all, it's rather astonishing how well Slashdot manages to perform this experiment in using software combined with people to try to speak both to individual freedom and choice as well as to some sense of common good or social contract. Few other places online seem to strive so hardcore towards trying to fulfill both needs at once.