Rousseau and Rasslin’ hogs
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/17/2005 - 22:10(Originally posted at Greater Democracy)
It has been many years since I read Rousseau’s Social Contract. It was back in college and I didn’t read it as closely as I should have. Yet it often comes to mind as I read discussions about the role government in the age of Internet technology, and how to handle trolls, spam and scamsters.
Recently, Craig Newmark wrote a message to a mailing list that I am on talking about issues that craigslist has had. “Starting in early October 2004, in our discussion boards, we saw a very large surge of disinformation. Specifically, we saw a lot of new people who were posting information that had already been discredited ..., and who also posted highly abusive personal attacks”
He goes on to say, “These folks seem to be organized as a decentralized network and are very persistent, a problem to this very day.
On our site, they're an annoyance; on Wikipedia, they're a societal problem, given the importance of Wikipedia.”
Supporting our troops means more than putting a bumper sticker on the back of your car
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/15/2005 - 11:04Yesterday, I had the honor of being on a conference call with Suzi Hackett. Suzi is a fascinating woman whose voice I hope we hear a lot more of over the coming months.
A year ago, her husband was serving in Iraq. He did not get to see his children dressed up for a Christmas pageant or see his youngest son’s first Christmas. He had been honorably discharged from the marines in 1999, but he could not sit by as his brothers in arms served in Iraq, so he volunteered and returned to duty.
Unlike families of service men and women in active duty, Suzi wasn’t living amidst other military families. She was isolated and didn’t have the sort of support that other military families have. Unfortunately, there are many people in Suzi’s situation. Spouses of reservists and those serving in the National Guard too often do not have the same sort of support structures that other military families have.
Random Acts of Cyber-kindness
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 12/12/2005 - 09:40Yesterday morning, I saw that Cronulla was a top Technorati search. I followed the link and read about the riots in Sydney. I read a bunch of the news articles and a lot of blog entries about the riots. I added comments to various blogs and talked with my wife about how the riots were not showing up in the U.S. news.
Today, the riots are the top World News story on Google and it is showing up on CNN. I’m not sure why this has jumped out to me the way it has. It seems as if it has something with increased intolerance and lack of civility in our society today.
"Just to sing…"
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 12/11/2005 - 09:19“Just to sing…”
“Though your brother's bound and gagged
And they've chained him to a chair”
No, it isn’t Abu Ghraib or march to Guantanamo by Catholics to protest treatment of terror suspects there that has brought these lyrics to my mind.
It is the death of Senator Eugene McCarthy that brings these words to mind.
” Won't you please come to Chicago
Just to sing”
Yesterday, I was at a meeting of people working to Draft Lowell Weicker to run as a Democrat against Joe Lieberman. Weicker served his first term in the Senate in 1972. Gene McCarthy had just left the Senate. Some of the folks who were at the meeting had ‘Come clean with Gene” in 1968.
Good bye to 'the land of the free'
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/08/2005 - 18:04Hossein 'Hoder' Derakhshan is perhaps one of the most important bloggers in the world today. He was born in Tehran and has written many great posts about the struggle for Democracy in Iran.
Today, I received an email on a list about blogging and journalism from Hoder talking about a blog post he wrote a couple weeks ago about his latest attempted trip to the United States.
Be careful about what you write in blogs, the land of the free is a little less free and somehow this makes me feel less safe in our country.
