wrythings

Sascha Meinrath has an interesting account of the Voter experience in Maryland. He asks a very important question: since when do databases trump official documents?

Here are two of them:

Jon citing David on simplifying the Net Neutrality cause under the more general framework of Structural Separation.

And I certainly concur: Structural Separation is the way to go. There’s a lot to be learned from the folks that convene around David Isenberg at Freedom-to-Connect. Don’t think I can make it there this year - but I would if I could! (Or I will if I can? We’ll see.)

Billy & Marnie explain the MashUp Challenge concept. Challenge Deadline: March 14, 5 PM - Pacific.

Found at Ego vs Ergo

“Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more,” Spielberg said in a statement. “China’s economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change.”

[From Spielberg boycotts Olympics - CNN.com]

I was following a thread on Handmeon where the idea of a Gift National Product came up. A friend offered an interesting statement:

A Gift National Product would indeed be a more inspiring fiction than the conventional GNP that increases with every broken window and devastated nation.

This was David Cay Johnston’s closing statement when interviewed on Bill Moyers’ Journal in January, 2008. David Cay Johnston is an investigative reporter for the New York Times and author of Free Lunch. Listening to this interview segment for the second time, I reflected upon the discipline of community informatics and the practice of civic entrepreneurship (as well as new modes of philanthropy).

If social justice is the scale with which we are to measure our effectiveness and our national character, we must not blind nor bind ourselves in a hyper-localism amounting to a head-in-the-sand response to the many policy shenanigans now written out as the law-of-the-land, or passed over - de facto - in the exercise in neglect by those who are entrusted with enforcement of the law.

The extent to which Washington has been the party of money, irrespective of the party nominally in charge, has led to a long-standing regime of laws (and enforcement) at odds with principles of sound governance. This scenario has given many a strong motivation to dismantle government. We have long been distracted by conflicts over the legitimacy of entitlement programs, while we have overlooked the institutionalization of rampant profiteering at the expense of the people and our long term interests.

As citizens, community informaticists, civic and social entrepreneurs and philanthropists, what is our response to the challenge of restoring justice and good governance to the nation?