Listics

When we fled the urban uncertainties following the Loma Prieta quake we hoped for a bucolic life here in the irony capital of the USA.  Pretty much we got what we hoped for, including an initial ironic face slap by ma nature.  We hadn’t been here a year when a tornado  roared through,  destroying neighbors houses, uprooting public services, generally striking fear in all our hearts… much like the ‘89 earthquake in sunny-sunny had done.

We’ve long talked about the trade-off between tectonic uncertainty and the great atmospheric disturbances here on the prairie.  That talk has been reduced to idle chit chat now that California has thunder and lightning, and yes - thanks to Ma Thatcher, Ron Raygunz, and the whole Bush family and their conscious policy of encouraging global warming to open polar regions for pertoleum extraction - now SoCal has tornadoes!

Among the dozens of professional conference opportunities I’ll be missing this spring, Freedom to Connect stands out.  I’m an introvert so it takes a lot of energy for me to connect with people.  This conference brings together a number of people whom I’ve met and whom I’d like to know better with a number of people I haven’t met but would like the opportunity to meet and hear real-time.  I wouldn’t miss this for anything but the family obligation that has me elsewhere, NOT in Washington DC on March 30 and 31.

The fee is ridiculously low:  $250 for a full two day conference ($350 special procrastinators rate after March 1).  If you have an interest in Internet infrastructure and the policy issues that will channel our opportunities for the next decade or so, then you should attend.  David Isenberg writes,

The future of telecommunications starts now; there’s a new U.S. Telecom Act in the works, there’s unbundling in Europe, fast fiber in Asia, wireless across Africa and networks a-building in cities and villages around the world. Lead the discussion. Shape the debate. Assert your Freedom to Connect.

The need to communicate is primary, like the need to breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce, socialize and learn. Better connections make for better communication. Better connections drive economic growth through better access to suppliers, customers and ideas. Better connections provide for development and testing of ideas in science and the arts. Better connections improve the quality of everyday life. Better connections build stronger democracies. Strong democracies build strong networks.

Freedom to Connect belongs with Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Assembly. Each of these freedoms is related to the others and depends on the others, but stands distinct. Freedom to Connect, too, depends on the other four but carries its own meaning. Unlike the others, it does not yet have a body of law and practice surrounding it. There is no Digital Bill of Rights. Freedom to Connect is the place to start.

Too often the discussion of telecommunications policy turns on phrases like "overregulation," and "investment incentives." These are critical issues, to be sure, but like the term "last mile," such phrases frame the issues in network-centric terms. As more and more intelligence migrates to the edge of the network, users of the network need to be part of the policy debate. Let’s put the user back into the picture. Freedom to Connect provides the frame.

There are forty or so speakers, discussants, debaters, and presenters on the program.  Included are at least a dozen top flight professionals who blog… people like Weinberger, AKMA, Crawford, Jarvis, MacKinnon, Malik, Michalski, Werbach, Dewayne Hendricks, Dan Gillmor, and of course David Isenberg.  The registrant list is filling out into a who’s who of smart people informed about stupid networks.  Martin Geddes, Jon Lebkowsky, Judith Meskill and Bob Frankston are on the list as of today.

Vint Cerf and David Weinberger are keynoters.  Charlie Firestone from the Aspen Institute will be there moderating a debate.  Scott Heiferman, the Meetup guy, will be there to represent our interests vis à vis Freedom of Assembly.

I wish I could be there too.

According to yesterday’s Guardian, "…Canada wants all
governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of ‘terminator’
crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only
infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant."

There is only one reason for the development of these terminator seed strains: corporate profit.  The risks associated with terminator strain genetic drift into the general food seed stock are huge.   The  business model that cuts off the marginal operation from maximizing it’s own investment in seed stock is cruelly exploitative.  The narrowing of edible options for a growing population is culturally demeaning.

But if you like an exclusive diet of iceberg lettuce and white corporate tomatoes, you’ll love terminator crop varieties.  Monsanto manufactures these seeds.  I understand that General Motors owns Monsanto.  And everyone knows that what’s good for GM is good for the world.

What the hell.  The contaminated air will kill us long before we starve from the food value free terminator crops.

Having run across references to King Leopold twice today, it seems appropriate to record the links.  I first spotted the avariciously genocidal constitutional monarch and personal-colonialist in a list of 20th century killers.  I was seeking a shorter list of despots that the American oligarchs promoted after world war 2, but was - well, not happy - but interested to read of the depredations of the man who inspired Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness." 

Later, reading a review of  Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild, I ran across the self-serving royal again.  I don’t know what this all means, except that Chris Locke is writing about Carlyle and Emerson these days, Mike Golby remains hung up on Apocalypse Now, and  I’m impressed with the slow pace of progress in this country when only this week have we arrested someone for the murder of the three freedom riders in Mississippi in  1963.  And, while the importation of slaves to the US was abolished in 1808 (making British abolition cheap and easy), it took more than fifty more years for the US to address the matter of slavery itself, and then abolition only happened as a sidebar to the war between northern industrialists and southern aristocrats for control of the expansion westward across North America.  Any Abe Lincoln fans out there care to argue with that?

Andy Carvin introduces a site that…

"… aggregates news feeds and blogs from a variety of sources around the world."

http://www.tsunami-info.org/

TsunamiHelp Blog… (link courtesy of BoingBoing which is tracking efforts here)…

- and -

Jayne Cravens writes,

There are two excellent web sites that I suggest to help guide those who are interested in identifying what organizations are working in [Southeast Asia] that would be happy to accept donations to help the people affected by these tsunamis, and provide extensive updates on relief efforts:

http://www.reliefweb.int

http://www.oneworld.net

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jayne Cravens, Online Volunteering Specialist
United Nations Volunteers
www.unvolunteers.org
Bonn, Germany

Online Volunteering:  www.onlinevolunteering.org
UNITeS: www.unites.org
Global volunteerism portal: www.worldvolunteerweb.org