Desert Island Discs

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Image (c) bp plc

While driving yesterday I was listening to John ‘Lord’ Browne, CEO of BP, being interviewed on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs programme and was struck by one of his choices — a song by Diana Krall. But of course I was unable to make a note of it at the time. It turns out that the BBC maintains a useful web page detailing the choices of current and past guests on the programme. Later, I bought the track — ‘Narrow Daylight’, written by Diana Krall and Elvis Costello — from iTunes, and very nice it is too.

I met Browne at a college dinner a few months back and discovered that we have two interests in common — photography and cigars. We use similar cameras, but he has much better smokes. Which is not entirely surprising: after all, he’s the one with money to burn.

Open Content in action

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I’ve written a little about the Net Neutrality debate , and posted some Blog entries bout it — e.g. here, here and here. It’s a complex and interesting subject, and politicians have clearly had difficulty getting their heads around it. So I was interested to see how Wikipedia would approach the topic.

The entry seemed to me to be a model of its kind — well-informed, mostly well-referenced and balanced. But its ‘neutrality’ has been challenged and has triggered Wikipedia’s discussion process. The discussion page on the issue is fascinating. Here’s the bit about the bias complaint.

This article seems to me to be slanted towards the pro-net neutrality position. The primary problem is about “framing the debate”. I think its pretty clear that the term itself is a frame, an analogy would be if the abortion debate was called “the pro-life vs. anti-life debate”. The article falls for this framing by first discussing the general or abstract concepts of network neutrality. A better approach I feel would be to discuss the origins of the debate, namely that emerging internet applications that cost ISP’s much more in bandwidth charges led them to ban certain devices or find ways to pass that charge on, by charging content providers instead of end users.

The other issue with this debate is that it seems to be an “astroturf” debate, with a inordinate amount of editorials on it.
Please see “Dispute from 71.140.198.6” below Hackajar 16:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest talking about reframe here instead of forcing a NPOV [Wiki-speak for ‘Neutral Point of View’ — JN] Hackajar 16:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hackajar’s additions on May 16th are clearly biased and speculative, simply regurgitating Google’s fear-mongering tactics about the COPE Act. This sort of hysteria is part of the debate over NN regulations, but he shouldn’t be offering up such astroturf propaganda as if it were factual.

Statements were added as a matter of common sense, a UPS driver does not pay the city to use road to drive to your house to deliver a package, not influenced by “fear-mongering” generated by any company. Hackajar 13:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. We publish verifiable information from reliable third party sources. Not “common sense.” Please review WP:NOR. Thank you. Nandesuka 13:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think I added some con-NetNeurality stuff to balance it out. I’m not saying what position I have or whether I have one. John wesley 12:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Once again, the page has been massively edited with a “net neutrality is good, non-regulation is bad” point of view. They’re bringing in all sorts of red herrings from the 90s and distorting the interests in the regulation fight.

Folks, Wikipedia is not supposed to be an extension of Moveon.org, it’s supposed to be place where people can get the straight story without all the spin. Net neutrality is a complex issue, not a good guys vs. bad guys emotional drama. RichardBennett 20:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It’s always irritating to have one’s views changed by other people’s better arguments, but this discussion has caused me to re-evaluate the original entry. I think the point about ‘framing’ is right. Wouldn’t it be nice if all public debate about complex issues were conducted this way? Then we really would have a deliberative democracy. I’m always puzzled by people’s hostility to Wikipedia: to me, it looks like one of the best things to have emerged from the Net.

At last, something Dubya and I have in common

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Er, we’re the same age (well, born in the same month anyway). And are therefore of the same generation. Here’s what the Pew Research Center has to say about us…

President George W. Bush’s 60th birthday, celebrated today, July 6, 2006, places him among the leading ranks of the nation’s 75 million baby boomers as they march into their senior years. A Pew Research Center survey finds many boomers are looking ahead to their own retirement while balancing a full plate of family responsibilities — either raising minor children or providing financial and other forms of support to adult children or to aging parents. The baby boomers currently range in age from 41 through 60 and, like middle-aged generations before them, they are in a stage of life when it is natural to give more than to take when it comes to family relationships. However, changing demographics within families have prolonged for boomers this period of being “sandwiched” between the needs of their parents and their children. In the past year, 50% of all boomers were raising one or more young children and/or providing primary financial support to one or more adult children, while another 17% whose only children are ages 18 and older were providing some financial assistance to at least one such child. In addition, the survey finds that two-in-ten boomers were providing some financial help to a parent. Few boomers bear all these responsibilities simultaneously; about 13% are providing some financial support to a parent at the same time as they are also either raising a minor child or supporting an adult child…

Railing

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Sean French wrote to say that the picture reminded him of the terrifying Betjeman poem, Devonshire Street W.1, about a man coming out of his doctor’s after having been told he’s terminally ill:

No hope. And the iron knob of this palisade
So cold to the touch, is luckier now than he.

Interesting fact no. 3782

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In Latin at least seven words are needed to express the sentence “If only you two thieves had drowned yourselves”, but in Greek only four.

Robert Graves and Alan Hodges, Reader over your shoulder: An intelligent layman’s guide to literature, Jonathan Cape, 1947, page 5.

C.I.A. Closes Bin Laden Unit

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Well, well, here’s an interesting development. According to the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice “dead or alive.”

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals. “The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever,” said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. “This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus.”

Jimmy Wales seeking more intelligent politics

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From his Mission Statement – Central Campaign Wikia…

Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. And let’s be simple and bluntly honest about it, left or right, conservative or liberal, broadcast politics are dumb, dumb, dumb.

Campaigns have been more about getting the television messaging right, the image, the soundbite, than about engaging ordinary people in understanding and caring how political issues really affect their lives.

Blog and wiki authors are now inventing a new era of media, and it is my belief that this new media is going to invent a new era of politics. If broadcast media brought us broadcast politics, then participatory media will bring us participatory politics.

One hallmark of the blog and wiki world is that we do not wait for permission before making things happen. If something needs to be done, we do it. Well, campaigns need to sit up and take notice of the Internet, take notice of bloggers, take notice of wikis, and engage with us in a constructive way.
The candidates who will win elections in the future will be the candidates who build genuinely participative campaigns by generating and expanding genuine communities of engaged citizens.

I am launching today a new Wikia website aimed at being a central meeting ground for people on all sides of the political spectrum who think that it is time for politics to become more participatory, and more intelligent.

This website, Campaigns Wikia, has the goal of bringing together people from diverse political perspectives who may not share much else, but who share the idea that they would rather see democratic politics be about engaging with the serious ideas of intelligent opponents, about activating and motivating ordinary people to get involved and really care about politics beyond the television soundbites.

Together, we will start to work on educating and engaging the political campaigns about how to stop being broadcast politicians, and how to start being community and participatory politicians…