Politics
Entries related to things political.
Random Notes
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 10:00On a mailing list of media educators, I heard about an article in Wired about corporations and people at the CIA editing articles in Wikipedia. A CalTech grad student built an application to track where anonymous edits were coming from and found that people from Diebold, Walmart and others were editing articles about their companies and that the CIA was editing articles on just about everything, including an entry which “deals with the details of lyrics sung in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode.”.
Twenty-four years ago, I spent eight months traveling around the United States and Europe. This year, Noel Hidalgo is on “an open-source journey around the world documenting free culture, social innovators and global change”
Recently, he interviewed Dirk Slater about eRiders. Stop by and watch the video. Also, if you can spare some change, toss it Noel’s way. Now that Beth Kanter has raised the money she needs for her trip to Cambodia, I’m updating the widget I have to point to Noel’s effort.
Back here in Connecticut, Andy Thibault continues his excellent coverage of the Avery Doninger Case. His latest post is about the amount of money that the school district is paying their lawyer to thwart openness.
The Journal Inquirer adds more to the discussion. This paragraph from their article jumped out at me:
When attempts at compromise failed, Doninger, a community college instructor who has been researching the First Amendment in a doctoral program in educational leadership, said she and Avery decided to bring the matter to court.
From the little bit that I’ve read, Avery is pretty lucky to have such a cool mother and the community college where she is an instructor is pretty lucky to have her as well. If I were at Gateway Community College, I’d probably sign up for one of her classes based on how she has handled herself in this course. I wish her luck on her doctoral thesis and I hope that she gets some useful material for her dissertation.
As a final note, when I was preparing for my presentation last week on educational opportunities in Second Life, I took a little bit of time looking at the Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness Program website.
I’ve been feeling pretty run down recently. I believe it is from all the dust that our moving is stirring up aggregating my dust allergy. I noticed on Facebook many of my friends updating their statuses about whichever cold they were currently fighting. This made me stop and think, how do tools which promote constant partial attention fit in with any bioterrorism or epidemic situation? I remember back in 2001, I was active in a few online chat rooms and when the planes crashed into the World Trade Centers, many of us connected via these chat rooms. If we ever face a massive epidemic, how will people communicate online?
The canary and net neutrality
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/13/2007 - 09:25We all sit quietly in our computer rooms and blog our hearts out about the latest outrage by our government and our worries about how large companies efforts to limit net neutrality could affect our ability to get out important messages. Yet, for most of us, this is academic or hypothetical. How many of you know someone who has had his account terminated because of stuff that he has written?
Yet this isn’t hypothetical or academic. Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, noted Iranian Blogger has constantly been the canary in the coal mine. He has been blogging about Iran since 2002. He has received death threats. Today, I received an email in which he talks about how his hosting service, Hosting Matters, terminated his account because of what he has written.
Doing a little searching, I found this post by Roger Simon about a denial of service attack on Hosting Matters, which knocked out Instapundit, LGF, Tim Blair, NZ Bear, etc..
In Hoder’s case, Washington Institute fellow, Mohammad Mehdi Khalaji threatened to sue Hoder because of comments Khalaji asserts were defamatory. Instead of seeking due process, Hosting Matters abruptly terminated Hoder’s account. Hoder is now considering legal action against Hosting Matters.
This is a good illustration of why net neutrality is so important. Hosting companies should not be able to restrict content because of a feared lawsuit against someone using their service. Hosting companies need to be protected from such lawsuits so that people like Mohammad Mehdi Khalaji cannot take away people’s freedom of speech by threatening a lawsuit.
The DFA-NCSL Challenge
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/12/2007 - 10:41Last week, I attended the National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) annual meeting in Boston Massachusetts. It is a large gathering with over 9,000 people in attendance. This included many legislators, their staff, members of press and people attempting to influence state legislatures.
The State Government Affairs Council (SGAC) was there. They describe themselves as the premier national association for multi-state government affairs professionals of more than 150 major U.S. corporations, trade associations and service providers.
The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) was there. They say their “mission is to elect more Republicans at the state level, including Attorneys General, Lieutenant Governors and State Legislators.” I saw many State Representatives from Connecticut there.
Some of the first sessions I attended were discussions of communications policy sponsored by CTIA, the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry. The wireless industry was well represented, but not the grassroots activists fighting for net neutrality.
It made me think, where was DFA? Well, to me, DFA isn’t the small group of people working up in Burlington, it is all of us who fight for fiscally conservative, socially liberal policies. I was there, as a member of DFA. I imagine there may have been others as well. But just because you weren’t there, doesn’t mean you can’t have an effect.
Here in Connecticut, there has been an effort to get people to take their State Reps to see Michael Moore’s Sicko. Have you contacted your State Rep and asked if they’ve seen Sicko? If they haven’t, have you invited them to go see it?
How about this: Call up your State Representative. Ask them if they attended NCSL. If they did, ask to get together with them and find out what sessions they attended. Find out what issues were important to them. If they are coming up with good issues, tell them you support them on those issues. If not, tell them why you disagree. Spend some time getting up to speed on the issues so that you can give them a perspective that might be different from SGAC, RSLC or CTIA.
Read through some of my posts about NCSL on Orient Lodge ahead of time to get a flavor for the meeting, and let me know what happens.
Let’s all get more involved in our state legislatures.
Random Things
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/09/2007 - 16:41For everyone that contributed to Beth Kanter’s trip to Cambodia. She raised the money she needs. Thank you to all of you. Now I’ve gotten an email from an old friend, Don Berks. Don is participating in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Bike Tour. Please visit his fundraising page.
Tim Brennan, who is running for Town Council in West Hartford has his campaign website up. It is a very clean and simple website. Please stop by and see what he’s up to.
Andy Thibault has more information about the Avery Doninger case. In his latest entry on Cool Justice, her reports that Doninger won by write in vote.
With Liberty and Justice for All
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/09/2007 - 09:03Tuesday, I was at the National Conference of State Legislatures listening to panelists talk about education and results based accountability. I’ve wondered about the unintended results in education. I touched on this briefly in a post about the Freedom of Information complaint filed against the Lewis S. Mills School in Burlington, CT.
Andy Thibault has been following this closely at Cool Justice and pointed me to Chris Powell’s wonderful column Inadvertently, school teaches about liberty.
Doninger and her friends also were forbidden to wear to school T-shirts with inscriptions supporting freedom of speech.
It all will be a nice counterpoint to the next recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag at Mills High School, what with its proclamation of "liberty and justice for all."
Powell’s article captures very nicely the truly teachable moment taking place at Lewis S. Mills School. Yet for teachable moments to take place, people must know about them and Thibault and Doninger are providing an important service in bringing attention to this teachable moment. I hope it spreads.
Being the instigator that I am, I hope the students and teachers at Lewis S. Mills school all return to school wearing T-shirts that simply say “Liberty and Justice for All”. Will the school, in the middle of this lawsuit send students home for wearing a quote from the Pledge of Allegiance? How will the administration treat teachers that try to use a teachable moment to encourage students to think seriously about what the Pledge of Allegiance means?
Beyond that, I do hope that the administration comes to its senses soon and settles out of court. Wise educators know not only when to take advantage of a teachable moment, but they also know when it is time to move on with the lesson plan. I hope such a settlement includes a way to bring closure to the teachable moment.
To me, the best closure would include a school assembly with Thibault, Powell and others on a panel talking about the importance of vigilantly protecting liberty and justice for all, followed by the musical event that precipitated the whole morass. I also hope college admission officers around the country take note and fight hard to recruit Avery Doninger.
I remain the optimist. I do believe in liberty and justice and all, and I salute Doninger, Thibault, Powell and everyone who is standing up it.
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