Archive - Sep 2005
September 16th
Renee Kahn, visiting Orient Lodge
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 09/16/2005 - 17:44
Reform Democrats
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 09/16/2005 - 10:57(Originally published in Greater Democracy)
What does it mean to be a ‘Reform Democrat’? This is a question that has been talked a lot about since last November and has been getting more discussion as we go through municipal primaries and head into municipal general elections this fall.
To some, it is a very tactical issue. We need a DNC chair who will do X. We need a blogosphere that will do Y. To some, it is a message of opposition, opposition to the abuses of power by the extreme right wing Republicans.
To others, it is about returning to key parts of the Democratic message, from FDR to Clinton. I always come back to the about section of Greater Democracy. There, we talk about things like ‘democratic governance’ and ‘how new communications technologies support democracy’.
Yes, I am a techie and a hardcore democrat. To me, this idea of being a democrat, and I am using a small ‘d’ very intentionally, is in contract to being an autocrat or a theocrat. It is about a belief that we are all in this together, that everyone should have a voice that can be heard, that we are at our best when we are working together to help one another out. It stands in stark opposition to “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.
September 15th
Understanding We the Media
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/15/2005 - 10:50This is a title I’ve always wanted to use. It is a combination of ‘Understanding Media’ by Marshall McLuhan and ‘We the Media’ by Dan Gillmor. We are at an interesting point in media convergence as I talked about a little yesterday.
Today, I want to write about when there are bumps in the convergence. As I was reading through my Bloglines subscriptions, I found this entry from BL Ochman’s What’s Next blog: Humorless Garrison Keillor Threatens to Sue Blogger for Parody. I followed the links to Trial Of The Century: Keillor V. MNspeak.com.
In that entry, the blogger writes about telling Keillor’s lawyer, "First off, your client has no legal basis for this, and it's clear you're just trying to bully me. Secondly, this is going to make your client look extremely out of touch. I'll even write the headline for you: 'Liberal Comedian Sues Blogger.' Do you really want that?"
September 14th
The convergence of television and the Internet
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 09/14/2005 - 09:09Geoff Fox has an interesting blog entry about TV and the Internet. He says a lot of interesting things that I want to comment on:
I hate to say something good about a competitor, but… Personally, I think it is good to say good things about competitors. It is part of being the good sport we were always told to be in gym back in elementary school.
It is interesting to watch the direction of TV news and the Internet. This gets to the crux of the post that I want to talk about. He has several points that I want to comment on.
September 13th
Social Dreaming
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/13/2005 - 19:52Years ago, I worked as the member of a regional Chief Information Officer’s staff unit for a large international financial services corporation. The complexity of international matrix management led my to work with a management consult who had been schooled in the Group Relations tradition of Wilfred Bion.
Through this, I became acquainted with the work of W. Gordon Lawrence on Social Dreaming. I participated in several social dreaming matrices, some of which where online. In a social dreaming matrix, people would share their dreams and others would share their associations to the dream. You will note that I said associations, not interpretations. The idea is not arrive at some sort of group consensus about the interpretation of a specific dream but to uncover common themes in the dreams of all the participants and what these common themes might mean to everyone.
I have not thought about social dreaming in a while. My life has been busy and complicated and I haven’t been to any social dreaming matrixes in quite a while. For that matter, I have not been remembering a lot of my dreams.
Then, last night, I had a very vivid dream. I woke up from the dream with a sense of peace that I haven’t had in a long time. I am posting the dream here, for anyone to share associations with, including comments about similar dreams that they have had. If there is interest, this could even evolve into a blog based social dreaming matrix. I look forward to hearing people’s responses.
The Dream:
