Politics:
Wednesday was International Women's Day,
though some of the celebrations were slated for today to enable greater
participation. The photo above was taken at equal rights protests in
Pakistan. Let's hope that one day soon women's voices will finally be
heard, that
the extraordinary writings and other works of art of women will finally
get their due, and that the entertainment media will start providing
great roles -- and role models -- for women. In much of the world, and
not just in struggling nations, women remain largely objects of our
culture, not subjects, passive when they should be active, and unequal
partners.
Massive Oil Spill on Alaska's North Slope: Confirming
the worst fears, the March 3 BP oil spill in the Alaska Prudhoe Bay oil
development (not far from the pristine and fragile ANWR that neocons
and the oil lobby are doing everything in their power, legal or not, to start drilling in), turned out to be many times worse
than first reported. Please remember this when you read the
greenwashing BP ads that deluge the mainstream media these days.
(Thanks to The Wilderness Society for the links.)
Child Soldiers: Amnesty International regularly documents stories no one else is willing to tell. Read these first-hand accounts
of child soldiers in Africa and understand how desperate life has
become in the struggling nations of the world. But don't read this too
close to bedtime, or you won't be able to sleep. (Thanks to Theresa
Purcell for the link.)
How Not to Conserve Energy: David Suzuki explains
how the Ontario government keeps falling back on traditional solutions
to meet future energy needs, despite its good intentions, and how they
could, without new gas-burning plants and nukes, meet the province's
needs by investing in new technologies and conservation instead of
projects that just increase the addiction. It's a message all
governments should take to heart. (Thanks to Jeff Gold of the Green
Party for the link.)
Technology & Society:
The Wonder and Scourge of Ubiquitous Computing: An interesting interview by Boxes & Arrows with Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware,
on the possibility that information systems will soon be telling us a
ton of factual information about ourselves, 24/7, and telling others as
well. Will this make us better people, more self-aware? Will the fact
strangers meeting us for the first time will have a ton of background
information on us (perhaps not all voluntarily disclosed) improve or
distort the development of relationships? Will this anchor us in the
past, and impede us from becoming someone else, slow our evolution? And
to what extent is all this data really telling us who we are, rather than just overwhelming us with mostly meaningless facts? (Thanks to Innovation Weekly for this link and the one that follows.)
Digital Books: Finally Ready for Prime Time?: A persuasive article in this week's BusinessWeek says they are, but I'll still believe it when I see it.
Two Tier Internet Service: Doc Searls has warned us before
about the danger of Big Telecom taking over the Internet and stopping
it up with tolls everywhere. The recent consolidation news would seem
to bear out his concern. But a recent NYT article by Ken Belson suggests
they may have another strategy: One high-quality Internet for the rich
willing to pay, and a much slower, less robust, less reliable, poorer
Internet for the rest of us. This is, after all, the American way -- in
education, in political influence, in health care. Why should we expect
telecom to act any differently?
Zaadz: A New Progressive Blog Community:
One of the things that attracted me to Salon Blogs was the sense of
community -- there have been, until recently, about 100 active
'sloggers' and we've helped each other get started blogging, get
noticed, and solve problems both personal and technical -- and had some
fun in the process. Salon.com has, alas, neglected its blog community.
But now there is a new blog community called Zaadz
(Dutch for 'seed') that promises to do what Salon Blogs might have done
-- enable collaboration and activism among a community of bloggers with
a common worldview. If moving my entire blog wasn't such a technical
nightmare, I'd move over tomorrow. (Thanks to Zaadzter Kari for the link.)
Serial Business: Good for Whom?: I usually agree with Seth Godin, the insightful marketing guru, but we part company on his latest article
on serial business ideas. Seth says: "It's too easy to focus on the
one-shot. Instead, someone in the serial business understands that once
you've got subscribers, you can spend all your time finding products
for your customers instead of searching for customers for your
products." My response? In other words, if you spend your money conning
customers into believing that 'new & improved' incremental changes
to existing products actually warrant additional expenditure, and make
sure that the 'unimproved' ones wear out quickly, you don't need to
invest in that risky 'innovation' stuff, or that messy business of
trying to determine what is really needed. (Thanks to Dale Asberry for the link, and also for the link to the Adaptation blog, which I'll be writing about more next week.)
Quote for the week: From Carolyn Kay at Make Them Accountable:
Religious
fundamentalists believe God gave us a brain but doesn’t want us to use
it. Political fundamentalists believe the founders gave us the right
to free speech but didn’t want us to exercise it. Free market
fundamentalists believe that there should be no interference with
markets, except by CEOs of gigantic corporations. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
