wrythings

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.

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.

Via the GIO listserv:

Maine is first state in nation to pass net neutrality resolve

Resolution Recognizes Importance of Nondiscriminatory Access to the Internet

(more…)

Would I have been happier with a fiddle than a violin?

From Our Unfree Press, 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism, resolution adopted in convention, St. Paul, June 1934:

WHEREAS, freedom of the press is a right of the readers of news and a responsibility upon the producers of news; and is not a privilege for owners of news channels to exploit; and

WHEREAS, reporting is a high calling which has fallen into disrepute because news writers have been too often degraded as hirelings compelled by their employers to serve the purposes of politicians, monopolists, speculators in the necessaries of life, exploiters of labor, and fomentors of war; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the American Newspaper Guild strive tirelessly for integrity of news columns and opportunity for its members to discharge their social responsibility; not stopping until the men and women who write, graphically portray, or edit news have achieved freedom of conscience to report faithfully, when they occur, and refuse by distortion and suppression, to create political, economic, industrial and military wars.

Internet Policy matters. Regulation of “Top Level Domains” (TLDs) is but one aspect of Internet Policy. Oversight of the “market” in domains falls to ICANN and to each of the entities sponsoring and operating their respective TLDs. In the case of .ORG it is the Public Interest Registry (PIR.org).

.ORG needs to go further in differentiating itself.

This is a big topic… as one of the early TLDs .ORG did not establish any strict requirements for registration of a .ORG domain (like .COM and .NET). Consequently, it is understood that new requirements or restrictions will not be added (and domains cannot be taken back). I don’t accept that this must necessarily follow, but I won’t argue that case here. As is obviously the intent for the .ORG TLD the space is decidedly non commercial and non-governmental as is clear in the name “Public Interest Registry”. While recognized status as a non-profit or a community group/voluntary association is not a requirement for a .org domain, my concern is for the interests of such entities.

There is another dimension to this: what is done as standard business practice in the servicing and managing of domains is an important aspect of the policy regime. Our choices as registrants are constrained by the business logic and interests of the registrars.

The business of domain registrars is business. These are the entities you go to for the purchase and renewal of rights to use your domain. Which registrar do you use and why? Does the climate and culture of this field line up with your values or those of your organization? Do you question the ethics of this field? What meaningful choice do you have?

If the Registry (as operator of the TLD) won’t (or can’t) take actions to differentiate itself, perhaps a Registrar can be established with principles of service and ethical standards appropriate to the public sector. While performing a transactional function it need not fall under the framework of a commercially oriented entity.

Aside from those registrars handling ccTLD (cc = country code) and therefore operating in a non-profit or public interest manner are there any registrars organized with a not-for-profit status? Here’s a list of ICANN-Accredited Registrars.

I’m sure that many in the Voluntary and Not-for-Profit sector would prefer to do business with an entity that reflects their commitment to civil society.

Who is ready to take up the banner and establish a non-profit domain registrar for .org? If there is no shining knight ready to save the day, what can we do for ourselves?

Can we not establish a Trust whose purpose is to serve NPOs domain needs?

I am one among many Chicagoans who were deeply inspired by the success of the Minneapolis grassroots digital inclusion effort that attained a Community Benefits Agreement as a part of their city-wide wireless agreement. Among the concepts promoted in Minneapolis was a provision of a “walled garden” … a space of community identified and city content that would be freely accessible to anyone able to receive the wireless signal. Some resources were also to go towards community portals for up to 90 neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Presumably, the content of those portals would be included in the walled garden? A committee was formed to flesh out those details of the contract.

The Minneapolis Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) served for us as a starting point in the Chicago campaign (still under way and in need of support) and led to the formation of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA). We began by taking a positive but critical look at the Minneapolis model, considering it an evolutionary step in public connectivity.

With each item on the Minneapolis CBA we asked: did they get enough? what does Chicago want? what does Chicago need? These are all preparatory to the wider dialog: what kind of Chicago do we want to be?

Chicago’s a bigger city … in terms of population and geography. Scale matters, and local political culture does too. But aside from those particulars, the principles of the movement for digital excellence and civic engagement allow for a wider dialog between and within communities. Communications policy as an object of public deliberation requires that we step up the discourse to a new level. We’re addressing topics that are multilayered and cross-cutting with all of our social needs and aspirations.

The “Walled Garden” appeared to be one of those concepts that required much further deliberation, not to mention some work on the language and framing.

A “walled garden” has some negative connotations in Internet parlance. A gated community doesn’t truly serve it’s residents well, nor our wider society, but we understand what motivates people to create them. This dissatisfaction with the terminology was not a minor part in desiring something more, something better.

But let’s start with the specifics of the original framing of Minneapolis’ walled garden concept: some community identified content and some city provided content would be freely available to anyone within range of the wireless signal. This ties to the basic questions of ownership of Wireless Internet Real Estate: splash pages and portals. Communities and Cities need a mechanism for local content and local identity and it needs to be front and center. We should view this space from a civic perspective. In Chicago we ask: what is the character of the network we want? Is’nt the splash page… the landing page as you join the network a critical aspect of that? What will the network encourage?

Some city content. Public convenience, utility and necessity. Branding for the city on the network. Lot’s of motivations there. But though we may be citizens and residents of a particular city, are we not also citizens and residents of the state in which we live, and of the nation? In other words, if there is a logic to having public access to city government resources online, in a free “walled garden” area, would this same logic not extend to state government sites, and federal sites? This broke open the concept and the idea of the Civic Garden emerged. Why not make all .gov sites available under these terms? The airwaves belong to the public anyway. We only license them out (or make them available for unlicensed use). Wireless providers need access to the right of way, pole attachments etc., you get the point.

If we accept the premise that leads to “some city content” being made available in this way, all .Gov is a step away.

Now, let us build on this case. Promotion of educational institutions and resources serves the public interest. Let’s make the content of school and higher learning available under this framework. Hence our call to make .edu a part of the Civic Garden. Now, .edu is a shorthand here: we intend this to cover the concept of education broadly.

An interesting aspect of this differentiation of select top level domains (TLDs) is in how the brands allowed themselves to be diluted. A fair number of government sites have been established under .com, with a supposition that people can’t type .gov. The different TLDs have meaning, and this is a means of opening the discourse on the relevance of the public sphere. We have an interest in opening up spaces for the commons.

The third leg of the Civic Garden pertains to community content produced locally, outside of government or government funded institutional channels. The Minneapolis walled garden and support of community portals establishes the basic principle. Communities have a right to create their own identity and to shape the character and flavor of the local network.

I expect the model of the Civic Garden to continue to evolve… word is that Minneapolis is adopting use of the term in association with their effort.