wrythings

Confucian wisdom via A Ku indeed!

don’t treat yourself like a tool (a ku!). Take your life seriously. Do something that excites you. Something that you wake up wanting to do.

The Prisoner - a British series circa 1968 - described as Kafkaesque. I saw a few episodes in reruns on PBS (I believe) when I was a teenager. The socio-psychological political parable appealed greatly to me (as it continues to) and I’ve wanted to have the opportunity to run through the full 17 episodes some time.

The lead character, Number 6 (played by Patrick McGoohan - who was born where I grew up!), a former agent of high rank in the field of intelligence/espionage resigned his post with no explanation who has found himself prisoner in a resort town known as “the village”. The village is an orderly place where people once entrusted with secrets of state or otherwise engaged in intelligence work are kept.

I won’t give a full background of the series, but I think episode 4 (entitled Free for All) topical in this primary season.

This episode opens for us questions around our fears, doubts, suspicion and paranoia regarding elections and the governance system. I’ll touch lightly on a few points, and perhaps return to the topic at a later date.

Our protagonist (Number 6) perpetually contends with the Order and conformity of the Village, his attention reasonably centered upon the incumbent of Number 2, a position with high turn-over. the visible and active figure-head.

Number 2 implies a Number One. Hierarchy is important to the image of order promulgated by the Village and the powers behind it. It’s more than hierarchy… it’s the idea of a class that is out of reach (whether single or a class of many). Number One is buffered, inaccessible, never seen. Only Number Two is seen to interact with Number One.

Number 2 is “democratically elected”, or so he asserts. But the people are so much in favor of the incumbency and the order, no one stands against him in election. That is an unsatisfactory situation. We need the ritual of the election. Dare we say, we need the distraction? The myth of election and democratic process. I’m putting forward these ideas as an expression of the ideology of hierarchic power imposed in the village as made evident by Number 2

Number 6 is recruited to stand for election… and there are many aspects of the episode we could delve into: why Number 6 goes along with the charade, why he proceeds in demogogic manner, the ambivalence of the order, it’s hierarchic concentration of power and the complacency of the many.

What is real power? What is power in our society? Are we more wed to the symbolic aspects of the democratic process than to the substance? What percent voter turn-out do the “free” nations have? Do we have faith in the mechanisms we have in place: voting machines, election certification, electoral college, campaign finance? Are we concerned with a true and wide (fair) enfranchisement of the populace? (Of all peoples?) What do we think of the rights, judgment and behavior of our fellows? Will we make the changes that make sense? Will we (and the media) be attentive to what merits attention? What aspects of social control do we enforce, actively and passively, to the detriment of our interests or values?

Be seeing you.

Sign the petition to get appropriate coverage of global environmental issues in the presidential race:

http://whataretheywaitingfor.com/

I’m taking a course on storytelling. Although I have been involved in community informatics for several years as an activist and organizer on digital divide/digital excellence and community networking, I found this work to involve the telling of stories and general reframing community and what we are about, or what is possible for us.

I was watching a video from the TED conference where Isabel Allende offered the old adage: What is truer than truth? The story. (Variants on this answer may be a matter of translation: Legend, Myth, Story, Narrative.)

I grew up on Grimm, and many mythologies… great preparation for an early encounter with Joseph Campbell via the Power of Myth (where Bill Moyers, another hero, interviewed him). I later made extensive study of semiotics and have an enduring interest in narrative, and the importance of story and discourse.

In recent years Italo Calvino brought me back to the play of stories/storytelling in the work of the OuLiPo — where art is craft that you work at each day, and good art or literature arises from finding the right combination of signs through experiment and experienced judgment.

Campbell’s work on myth and ritual, the idea of the story opening a path to greater truth than mere facts, or perhaps a greater truth in discourse around a story than in any particular telling or offering of an account, and the idea in Calvino that folktale is not myth degenerated but that myth arises out of folktale when the right combination his hit upon, these are all connected.

Storytelling is part of the natural and necessary repertoire of human behavior… it helps us cope and adapt as well as honor and remember. Though stories can be used to divide, their healing potential is critical in this moment. Our creative play can reconfigure our individuality and our collective life.

There’s a confessional book out on the New Hampshire “phone jamming” effort to impact the elections back in 2002. The author was interviewed on Democracy Now (Tuesday, Jan 8 2008). His work in New Hampshire and New Jersey under the direction of leadership is a emblematic of the most impoverished war mentality: winning at all costs.

Witness the two examples offered: first, the “phone jamming” … the overloading of the phone system at the NH democratic campaign offices embodies a straight-forward tactic in warfare, it amounts to taking out communications of your opponent. (Do you hear an echo of Sun Tzu?)

A second example, fits the category of psychological operations … creating pre-recorded messages simulating an automated phone message campaign of the democrats, republican operatives played upon racial fears and labor force insecurity by using minority voices/accents in NJ. Ugly rumors, manipulation of media messages, cultural stereotypes in the general school of low-rhetoric has become accepted. Impersonation of the opponent’s communications, and selective targeting of their likely supporters with divisive messages is significantly more calculated and abhorent.

(Other infamous moments in electoral history reek of the war mentality and speak poorly of our national politics: watergate - irangate.)

Party leadership (of any party) should not conduct itself in a manner beneath the dignity of our republic. Playing hard and playing to win - i.e. with determination - are not the same as winning at any costs. (We can debate this, but I think that even in war, we should not seek to “win at any cost”.) If in our politics we aim for a simple majority of the votes that are counted… partisan electioneers will tend to lose interest in a whole and healthy polity in the scramble for what amounts to a cheapened “victory”.

There’s a lot of room for criticism of our political system… winner take all appears much less attractive than proportional representation (beyond the two-party system), alternative run-off and consensus building paradigms.

Winning at all costs has a deleterious effect… it debases all involved. (But, as debasing as phone jamming and domestic psy-ops may be - challenging voter eligibility and undermining the integrity of the ballot system seem more nefarious. The former being a mean spirited and perhaps racially charged invoking of the letter of the law, the latter demoralizing those who might otherwise argue that our system works despite it’s flaws.)

I’m once again brought back to Kant’s maxim: never fight (a war) in such a manner that would preclude a future peace. I try to apply this at many layers of my life… personal relationships, issue advocacy, political rhetoric. It places one in a very different mind than the war profiteers and war mongers who are vested in perpetual domination and conflict.

What’s a tasty domain? The domain you want! (and sometimes the domain you had….)

Slashdot points to an important story for those following Internet/ICANN policy issues.

Domain Tasting occurs through a nice set of loopholes in Internet domain name governance. Some feel that the market will eventually sort this out, and others think that this much abused policy is a nice perk of the industry.

Most tasting occurs in what is known as the ‘add grace period” (agp) … a window of 5 days in which a domain can be returned to the pool of unregistered domains, but tasting can also occur after a domain expires.

Tasting refers to determining whether the domain has value… value has some subjective dimensions here, but two rather reductionist perspectives narrow in on whether 1) a domain is likely to attract plenty of traffic (so that even when parked it can generate profit) or 2) there are parties who will pay a premium price for control of that domain. This boils down to “what financial value can be extracted from control or resale of the domain.

A domain name being held by a Taster may be returned to the pool of unregistered names before the grace period ends at no cost… (excepting the case of .org domains, PIR.org having instituted a nominal restocking fee to dis-incent this behavior.

Tasting connects to a number of behaviors that may be detrimental to the name system and against the interest of Internet users in general.

Tasting identifies domains which can be snapped up and taken from the unregistered pool and which can be made profitable to the owner, but largely useless to everyone else (i.e. more noise and unavailable to meaningful development). If it looks like a domain is likely to generate revenue that would cover the cost of buying it, it makes perfect sense for them to hold on to it.

We have domain holders interested only in what they can monetize out of the domain … we have registrars engaged in holding domains in the add-grace and redemptive-grace period… we have perpetual holding of domains in successive registration and dropping of the same domain within add-grace provision…

Value of a domain should be more than this narrow sense of financial return.

The value of domains to the informational commons (the Internet) should also be considered.

The add-grace period may have made sense in the past. The Internet community would probably be better without it, but following the PIR lead, restocking fees may offer a partial solution. It’s a strategy favored by many as a solution to tasting.

However, if tasting is but one aspect of the behaviors in the domain ecology we shouldn’t treat it in isolation. Unfortunately the ICANN policy process favors segmenting some important issues (tasting, kiting, etc.) This divide the issues and conquer strategy benefits certain constituencies at the expense of others and at the expense of Internet users at large (all of us).

If we got rid of the add-grace period entirely… what would be the disadvantage to that? Think about it: a domain registration isn’t a large expense. The value of the time spent by an end user in the process of registering a domain, and dealing with the registrar easily outstrips the registration expense. (Just calculate the time spent by a modest hourly approximation of earning potential of the person in question.)

If we are talking about any scenario that isn’t a bulk processing of domains, the end user’s time (and the potential time of anyone he’d have to interact with assuming even the slightest possibility of a non-automated interaction) it makes no sense to have the AGP at all! If you bought it you bought it… let there be a restocking fee or return it to the pool (with no refund) if you made a mistake and don’t want to develop it. In short it doesnt save any legitimate buyer any real expense to be able to return a domain during AGP. (imagine the hurdles just in dealing directly with the registrar)

And in the case of bulk processing of domains, what basis would there be for return of domains other than your tasting didn’t return signs adequate value?

So, again, what domain is really tasty? The domain you want. Who has an inkling you might want a domain? A registrar where you checked the availability of a given domain name. They’re in a privileged position if you don’t take the domain. They’re also in a very privileged position if you fail to renew your domain in time, and they stand to make a nice profit off what was once your domain in that scenario. They may even play you off against others all the while offering to act in your interest for a premium price.

But that’s another topic. Or is it?