“Relieved” is the best word I can find right now. Now we have to hold the Democrats to the fire against overreach. Which strikes me as easier than the last eight years have been, notwithstanding some of the more classically and repressively “liberal” impulses in the new Congressional makeup. This truly is a centrist country (and let’s forget about the “center-left” and “center-right” posturing when the left/right dichotomy is so demonstrably obsolete) and this election rekindled my optimism on that point and on the fact that “yes we can” also keep some of the congressional excess at bay while getting to work at rebuilding infrastructure, credibility in foreign policy and not least opening the economic “force multiplier” that is a true internet commons. Oh and restructuring the economy away from a foundation based on the assumption of "cheap" fossil fuels...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Dave Winer: fair and balanced?
It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that Dave Winer invented RSS ("Rich Site" or "Real Simple" Syndication), the backbone of today's web in general and weblogs like this one in particular. His own weblog - Scripting News - is a good read and shows up in my feed readers.
Dave, like Doc Searls, is a mentor to me about how to use this new medium to effectively contribute opinion. Like me they're both technologists with a wider interest in the world at large and not just the technology facet. They both often opine on matters of a political nature. You can see their influence on my blog, which I hope of course represents my own unique perspective which is influenced by but not equivalent to Dave's and Doc's.
So not surprisingly, lately Dave's been blogging about Sarah Palin. The first one I read had (what was to me) a novel take on the implication of the Palin selection. The basic theses (in typical blogging fashion, these are quotes Dave pulled from other sites), which is that Palin is congruent with working class values (note: not issues) in key states OH and PA; that she represents the next iteration of Reagan's "Morning in America" and "small-town values"; and finally that the Palin selection is intended to be the vanguard of an full-press attempt to swift-boat Obama as a true agent of change, rather than Washingtonian-by-way-of-Daley's-Chicago business-as-usual.
Not all of these opinions (or opinionators) represent Dave's (and my) own pro-Obama point of view, unless he's also a glass-half-empty sort like I am and is really worried about the course this election might take.
Dave's very next Palin post in contrast was almost entirely his own words. It's about the media reaction to Palin and (in Dave's words) the media suddenly growing "a backbone" and challenging the received McCain narrative of the Palin selection. Interesting, and (if Winer is correct) a bit scary since one of his ideas about why this might be the case is that they weren't included in the vetting process through leaks and the resulting complex of psychosocial and psychopolitical feedback loops in the sense of the 21st century electronic media milieu where the media oligarchs play a critical gatekeeper role.
I'll close with a Palin bonus link (thanks to Doc Searls for this stylistic tool!).
Dave, like Doc Searls, is a mentor to me about how to use this new medium to effectively contribute opinion. Like me they're both technologists with a wider interest in the world at large and not just the technology facet. They both often opine on matters of a political nature. You can see their influence on my blog, which I hope of course represents my own unique perspective which is influenced by but not equivalent to Dave's and Doc's.
So not surprisingly, lately Dave's been blogging about Sarah Palin. The first one I read had (what was to me) a novel take on the implication of the Palin selection. The basic theses (in typical blogging fashion, these are quotes Dave pulled from other sites), which is that Palin is congruent with working class values (note: not issues) in key states OH and PA; that she represents the next iteration of Reagan's "Morning in America" and "small-town values"; and finally that the Palin selection is intended to be the vanguard of an full-press attempt to swift-boat Obama as a true agent of change, rather than Washingtonian-by-way-of-Daley's-Chicago business-as-usual.
Not all of these opinions (or opinionators) represent Dave's (and my) own pro-Obama point of view, unless he's also a glass-half-empty sort like I am and is really worried about the course this election might take.
Dave's very next Palin post in contrast was almost entirely his own words. It's about the media reaction to Palin and (in Dave's words) the media suddenly growing "a backbone" and challenging the received McCain narrative of the Palin selection. Interesting, and (if Winer is correct) a bit scary since one of his ideas about why this might be the case is that they weren't included in the vetting process through leaks and the resulting complex of psychosocial and psychopolitical feedback loops in the sense of the 21st century electronic media milieu where the media oligarchs play a critical gatekeeper role.
I'll close with a Palin bonus link (thanks to Doc Searls for this stylistic tool!).
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Can't say I disagree...
...with this John Judis analysis of what sure looks to be a difficult road ahead for Obama's presidential hopes. I expect tonight's acceptance speech will indicate which way the trending goes from here to November.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Barackonomics
I've been convinced for a long time now that we need to transcend left/right polarity on many seriously pressing issues, including "the economy" and particularly sustainable and equitable development and (yes) growth. Here's a good example of why I think Obama is the superior candidate, not just compared to McCain, but also to the other vanquished primary candidates Democrat and Republican alike (and don't even get me started on the oligarch-friendly Bush administration).
Pull quotes:
"The market is the best mechanism ever invented for efficiently allocating resources to maximize production,” Obama told [David Leonhardt, NYT]. “And I also think that there is a connection between the freedom of the marketplace and freedom more generally.” But, he continued, “there are certain things the market doesn’t automatically do."
"I think I can tell a pretty simple story. Ronald Reagan ushered in an era that reasserted the marketplace and freedom. He made people aware of the cost involved of government regulation or at least a command-and-control-style regulation regime. Bill Clinton to some extent continued that pattern, although he may have smoothed out the edges of it. And George Bush took Ronald Reagan’s insight and ran it over a cliff. And so I think the simple way of telling the story is that when Bill Clinton said the era of big government is over, he wasn’t arguing for an era of no government. So what we need to bring about is the end of the era of unresponsive and inefficient government and short-term thinking in government, so that the government is laying the groundwork, the framework, the foundation for the market to operate effectively and for every single individual to be able to be connected with that market and to succeed in that market. And it’s now a global marketplace."
Pull quotes:
"The market is the best mechanism ever invented for efficiently allocating resources to maximize production,” Obama told [David Leonhardt, NYT]. “And I also think that there is a connection between the freedom of the marketplace and freedom more generally.” But, he continued, “there are certain things the market doesn’t automatically do."
"I think I can tell a pretty simple story. Ronald Reagan ushered in an era that reasserted the marketplace and freedom. He made people aware of the cost involved of government regulation or at least a command-and-control-style regulation regime. Bill Clinton to some extent continued that pattern, although he may have smoothed out the edges of it. And George Bush took Ronald Reagan’s insight and ran it over a cliff. And so I think the simple way of telling the story is that when Bill Clinton said the era of big government is over, he wasn’t arguing for an era of no government. So what we need to bring about is the end of the era of unresponsive and inefficient government and short-term thinking in government, so that the government is laying the groundwork, the framework, the foundation for the market to operate effectively and for every single individual to be able to be connected with that market and to succeed in that market. And it’s now a global marketplace."
Saturday, August 2, 2008
It would be laughable...
...if I wasn't so afraid that tactics like this might just do exactly what the Republican brain trust intends.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Duh. Ugh.
Still more examples of things are obvious (duh) and things that are just abhorrent (ugh).
We urgently have to purge these incompetent, corrupt, dangerous ideologues from the body politic with extreme prejudice. McCain - though better than these clowns - just ain't enough of a purge for this non-party-affiliated independent. We can worry about the consequences of any Obama shortcomings in competence, ethics and ideology later. Even if they are worse than I suspect (i.e. as bad as the McCain campaign or the Wall Street Journal implies they are), they probably cut in a completely different direction and even that would be progress.
We urgently have to purge these incompetent, corrupt, dangerous ideologues from the body politic with extreme prejudice. McCain - though better than these clowns - just ain't enough of a purge for this non-party-affiliated independent. We can worry about the consequences of any Obama shortcomings in competence, ethics and ideology later. Even if they are worse than I suspect (i.e. as bad as the McCain campaign or the Wall Street Journal implies they are), they probably cut in a completely different direction and even that would be progress.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
iPhone and Apple, a jaundiced view
A jaundiced view from Dave Winer that I don’t necessarily disagree with. Even as I laud iPhone as the game-changer it is (I don’t own one and won’t as long as ATT is my only supported carrier choice).
- The Mac’s sense of seamless design aesthetics and “it just works” for non-geek users
- The Windows MSFT Office stack (sorry, not the OpenOffice one, and not the Mac version of Office either)
- The Linux robustness, hardware openness and openness to development innovation
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