The Doninger Case and Transit Disruptions
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 00:07What a day!
10:40 PM. I am finally home after a very long day. Today, I went in to hear oral arguments about the Avery Doninger case at the Second Circuit. My father-in-law had spoken with me beforehand about what a beautiful courtroom it is. I agree, and a description of the courtroom deserves a blog post of its own.
There were three judges hearing the arguments on several different cases. The judges probably deserve their own blog post as well, as do the other cases. However, I was there to observe the Doninger case. The judges spent a lot of time hearing the other cases, often going over the allotted time for each case, and so the Doninger case didn’t start until about 3:45. Each side was to receive ten minutes for their oral arguments, and before Jon Schoenhorn, who was representing the Doningers got a chance to launch into his prepared remarks, the judges started peppering him with questions about Hazelwood.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (doc. #: 86-836) was a case that addressed the issue, “To what extent, consistent with the First Amendment, may educators exercise editorial control over the contents of a high school newspaper produced as part of the school’s journalism curriculum?” It seemed a strange place to start, especially if there were only going to be twenty minutes for arguments. However, the questions went on and on from there. Nearly two hours later, the court adjourned.
The court does not allow you to bring cellphones into the courtroom, especially phones like mine that can be used to take pictures, so I left my cellphone with the U.S. Marshals. When I picked up my cellphone, I received several text messages from Kim about the building collapse that disrupted MetroNorth trains for several hours.
Even though the trains were supposed to be running again by the time the court adjourned, I figured that the train schedules, and the backlog of commuters would make the train trip back particularly complicated, so I went to dinner with the Doningers and Attorney Schoenhorn. Even after dinner, the trains were still not fully back on schedule and I rode a crowded train combining the 8:04 and the 8:07 train.
So now, I am home. I’ve taken a little time to write initial comments. I will head off to bed, and then write up more details about the court, the judges, the other cases, and the two hours of oral arguments of the Doninger case tomorrow morning when I’m not so tired.
While it was a long day, it was also a wonderful day. I am glad I got a chance to go see the case continue to unfold, and I urge everyone to pay closer attention to the judicial processes in our country.
Lots of Random Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 15:03Slowly, I’m digging out of all the emails and other content that has piled up. I’m down to less than 400 unread emails in my inbox, not counting the 3000 or so that I’ve moved to folders and will probably never get around to reading. I’ve also flagged around 500 for following up. Some are email discussions that need to be had. Others are ideas worth investigating. Some are simply interesting things that I want to highlight.
So, with that, I’m going to spend a little time highlighting some of them that are out there to at least clean up my list a little.
Tom Atlee sent out an interesting email wondering what public engagement looks like to Barack Obama. I think this is a great question. With Sen. Edwards out of the race, I’m now supporting Barack Obama, in part because of the way he is encouraging public engagement. However, public engagement is about much more than people chanting “Yes we can”, or “We are all individuals”.
So, would an Obama election be a mandate for him pushing through his agenda? Would it bring about a more open government where people can see more clearly what is going on and take a more active role? Will it support a more deliberative democracy, where people can come together and develop wiser solutions to the problems our country and our world changes? Will it bring about systemic changes that will make things like deliberative democracy easier and more likely?
Natasha Chart has a blog post up on BlogsUnited entitled, Internet Marketing: They Copy Us, If They Know What's Best. I’ve scanned it, and it looks like a good starting point, especially for progressive bloggers that want to get their message out more widely.
Avery Doninger invited me to the Purple for Peace - Genocide Awareness Day. Wear purple on March 14th, to get people to think about genocide in places like Darfur.
Various people have written to me about EENR blog. Since there was a discussion about it up on MyDD, it seems like it is public now.
Sue Henshaw wrote about the CT For Lieberman statewide party meeting on March 6th at 6:30 PM at 243 Zion St.,Hartford, CT 06106.
There are plenty of other things, but the Metanomics forum in Second Life is about to start, so, I should post this as is.
A different view of Immersion and Augmentation
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 11:18Recently, there have been some discussions about immersion and augmentation in Second Life. They are presented as a continuum. Either you focus on an immersive experience of Second Life, where your avatar takes on a life of its own, and the role of technology in mediating the experience becomes less and less important, or you focus on using the technology to augment your communication with other people in Second Life.
Some augmentation folks view immersion as a subset of augmentation and some immersion folks view augmentation as a subset of immersion. In thinking about it, I wonder if Immersion and Augmentation are different ends of a continuum, or if they are orthogonal axis.
In the lower left corner, we find people who are neither particularly immersed in Second Life nor particularly good at using Second Life to augment their communication. These are people just starting out in Second Life, the Noobies.
Some people become more and more immersed in Second Life. Those that become immersed without augmenting their communications become the Spectators, swept up in the wonderful immersive environment. These people become more adept at navigating in Second Life, at using the camera angles, mouselook and other tools to get the most out of their experience in Second Life. They may enhance their own avatars as part of their effort to be more immersed in the environment.
Those that focus on augmenting their communications in Second Life become the Performers. Some people participate in Second Life, performing, being interviewed, speaking on panels. They take advantage of groups, voice chat, and other tools to communicate more effectively. They may also enhance the appearance of their avatars, but they do this to communicate more about themselves as opposed to as part of an effort to become more immersed in the environment.
Yet really, none of us exist on just one axis or the other, and we spend different amounts of time enhancing our ability to communicate with Second Life as well as our ability to immerse ourselves in Second Life. With that, you get people who actively role-play in Second Life. They combine both the immersive and the augmentive aspects of Second Life.
So are immersion and augmentation orthogonal axis, instead of a continuum? Where do you exist on such a plane? How does it change your perspective on being in Second Life? Or, am I looking at things completely wrong?
The little hill
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 10:21
Yesterday, Mairead, Miranda and I went sledding. It was warm and the snow was slushy. The sleds may not have gone as fast as they would have otherwise and we got soaked, but we also had a blast.
Being Heard
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 18:36A lot of my therapist friends are talking about HBO’s series, In Treatment. They argue about whether it is a realistic representation of therapy. They question whether it is misrepresenting the experience of therapy because of problems of how it was translated from the Israeli series “Be Tipul”.
The New York Times reviews the series with an article, He Listens. He Cares. He Isn’t Real. In the article, Diane O’Rourke, a medical writer from Chicago is quoted, “There is an old saying that most men would rather have you hear their story than grant their wish.”
When asked about this I responded that as a blogger, putting my story online daily, so I might not be the best person to ask this, however, I've often felt that the deepest wish that many people have is simply to be heard.
