jenniferdebeer

. (punto y final)

2010-07-13T03:00:00.003+01:00

In her growing years, Ammu had watched her father weave his hideous web. He was charming and urbane with visitors, and stopped just short of fawning on them if they happened to be white....He worked hard on his public profile as a sophisticated, generous, moral man. But alone with his wife and children he turned into a monstrous, suspicious bully, with a streak of vicious cunning. They were beaten, humiliated and then made to suffer the envy of friends and relations for having such a wonderful husband and father.

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy - p180

2009-06-24T21:10:00.003+01:00

I write this as I listen (on Cadena Ser) to the Spain - USA soccer match in the Confederations Cup. The score stands at 2-0 for the EEUU, in the final minutes of the game. Aye, la pobre España. Cómo me duele una derrota. But, as consolation (of a sort), one of their citizens received an honorary doctorate at Oxford today. Well, I guess the two aren´t really related. But since I was at the Encaenia ceremony, and I am surprised and disappointed to hear that the soccer match is going so badly; contrast that with how pleased I felt earlier today when Calatrava was awarded the degree, me inspira poner el texto del evento aquí. First the Latin text (which is read at the Encaenia), and then the English.

Dr Santiago Calatrava Valls

Poeta, dummodo chartam et calamum habeat, versus scribere potest; musico forsitan clavicymbalum vel voces paucorum sufficiant; pictor colores et tabulas non magna impensa emit; at architecto non solum patrono et pecunia opus est sed cum pondere et repulsa vastae molis materiei luctandum. Virum tamen nunc laudo qui et patronos e multi orbis terrarum regionibus allexit et ipsi rerum gravitati resistere videtur; tanta enim arte aedificia construit ut materiem quamvis concretam velut ceram fingi velut aquam fluere prope credamus. Valentiae natus est, cuius civibus monumenta fecit praeclarissima, Valentiae in disciplina ingeniaria est erudutis; quare seu pontem fabricatur seu stationem ferroviariam seu museum, rigorem et phantasiam coniungit. Velut poeta rhythmum, velut musicus concordiam bene intelligit, neque miror eum partem otii in statuis faciendis consumpisse; nam qua facilitate sculptores materiem suam tractare solent, ea item aedifica flecti et curvari coegit. Vergilius in Aeneide de aere spiranti et vultibus vivis e marmore ductis loquitur; simili modo non multum abest quin huius viri opera, licet formam neque hominum neque animalium imitentur, motus capacia esse existimares. Ita museum quod pro Wisconsinensibus fecit nihil quod in natura videmus repraesentat, attamen mentes spectatorum imagione aquilae vel ad altum tendentis vel desuper ruentis saepe capiuntur. Titulus in tumulo Pauli Veronensis pictoris inscriptus aemulum eum naturae orbis miraculum vocat, quae verba ad hunc virum referre possis; nam inventionis audaciam stupet mundus, pulchritudine iuvatur.

Praesento magum Hispanum, qui chabylem cretam saxum potestati suae subiecit, Sanctum-Iacobum Calatrava Valls, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris.

Admission by the Chancellor

Summe architecturae magister, cuius opera utile pulchro miscent, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris honoris causa.

---

A poet can write his verses as long as he has pen and paper; a piano and a few voices may be enough for a composer; a painter´s colours and canvases do not cost him much; but an architect not only needs commissions and the funding to go with them but has to struggle with the bulk and the resistance of masses of heavy material. Yet the man whom I now praise has attracted commissions from many parts of the world and seems to defy the law of gravity; such is the skill with which he designs his works that concrete seems to be moulded like wax or flow like water. He was born in Valencia, to which city he has contributed a magnificent group of public buildings, and studied engineering there, acquiring from this experience a mastery that has enabled him to combine logic and imagination, whether he is putting up a bridge, a railway station or a museum. He has a poet´s feeling for rhythm, a musician´s sense of harmony, nor am I surprised that he has devoted soem of his leisure to sculpture, for he makes buildings bend and curve with the kind of command that sculptors have over their own medium. Virgil speaks in the Aeneid of breathing bronze and living faces drawn from marble, and in similar vein one may feel that this man´s works, without actually imitating the forms of living creatures, appear almost capable of motion. Thus the museum which he has designed at Milwaukee does not represent anything found in nature, and yet a good number of those who have seen it have found themselves thinking of an eagle soaring aloft or swooping from on high. The Latin epitaph on the grave of the painter Veronese describes him as the rival of nature and the wonder of the globe, words which one can apply equally to this honorand; for the world marvels at the boldness of his invention and delights in its beauty.

I present a Spanish magician, who has compelled steel and concrete to submit to his will, Santiago Calatrava Valls, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Admission by the Chancellor

Superlative architect, in whose works function and beauty are conjoined, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

---

Al final, Spain lost their match against the USA, and are out of the Confederations Cup. What a pity

African Studies Centre (Leiden) - Africa Thesis Award

2009-05-24T20:01:00.004+01:00

The Africa Thesis Award

The Award

Deadline for submission: 16 June 2009!

Are you interested in Sub-Saharan Africa and is your Masters thesis on a related subject? If so, the African Studies Centre (ASC) in Leiden is offering you the chance to win €1000 in its Africa Thesis Award!

The award aims to encourage student research and writing on Sub-Saharan Africa and to promote the study of African cultures and societies. It is presented annually to a student whose Masters thesis has been completed on the basis of research conducted on Africa.

The award consists of a prize of €1000 for the winning thesis. The winning thesis will be published in the ASC African Studies Collection. Submitted theses may be (partially) published on The Broker's website:www.thebrokeronline.eu.

Who can apply

Any final-year student who has completed his/her Masters thesis with distinction (80% or higher or a Dutch rating of at least 8) at a university in Africa or the Netherlands can apply. The thesis has to be based on independent empirical research related to Sub-Saharan Africa in one of the subjects listed in the following section and must have been examined within one year prior to the deadline for submitting manuscripts (see below).
The ASC specifically encourage students from Sub-Saharan Africa to submit their theses for this annual competition.

Subject of the thesis

Any thesis thematically related to socio-geographical, economic, political, juridical or anthropological issues or focusing on the humanities such as history, religion and literature (but with the exception of language and/or semiotic studies) can be submitted. Its geographical focus should be on Sub-Saharan Africa or its migrant communities elsewhere in the world. The thesis must be socially relevant.

Details of the how and where, etc of submission can be found at http://www.ascleiden.nl/Research/Award/

scissors cut

2009-05-13T12:40:00.004+01:00

I´ve always loved this song. It´s "Scissors Cut" written by Jimmy Webb, but here sung by Art Garfunkel (never knew Garfunkel sang it btw - I prefer Jimmy Webb singing it, on his album "Angel Heart" (album´s hard to find; v expensive!...))

It contains the quintessential Cold War declaration of love, when starting:

"If they ever drop the bomb," you said
"I'll find you in the flames"

As for the Garfunkel, it´s still good. I do wonder if that´s possibly Jennifer Warnes or Linda Ronstadt singing the backing vocals.

milton nascimento & james taylor

2009-02-08T11:52:00.002Z

yet another stroll down memory lane. first up, "only a dream in Rio" with Milton Nascimento and James Taylor (the song is on Nascimento´s album titled Angelus). then, Milton Nascimento singing/performing "Veracruz". lovely lovely.

Only a Dream in Rio:

Veracruz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d82aOUs5MO0

clip from movie "the five pennies"

2009-02-08T11:37:00.002Z

been waltzing down memory lane.
i just love this collaboration between Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye.

beggar gets 18 months for stealing a loaf of bread

2009-01-31T08:36:00.003Z

The news of a French beggar who has been handed an 18 month jail term for stealing a loaf of bread in Spain (Badalona), reminded me of a talk by Dr Judith Rowbotham given at a conference titled "Experiencing the Law. From Globalisation to Poverty: the implications of a credit crunch" at the IALS last month (December 2008). [What I am writing here is purely from memory (of her talk), so don´t quote me- or quote with a similar caveat :-) ]

Dr Rowbotham spoke about the criminal justice system in 1800´s England, and quite interestingly, told that petty crime (such as one could consider the crime above) then had been punished with only ever a limited period of jail time (say, 48rs, - though I´d have to check my notes for the specifics, she may have said 72 hrs) since (1) this was considered less disruptive to the community and family life of the person concerned, (2) the reputational damage suffered through incarceration would be contained, (3) the offender could return to work quickly (if they were employed) which would be less disruptive to his/her place of employ, (3) the shock value of incarceration and its consequent impact on the offender was found to occur within the first 48 hours of jail time anyway (so a longer stay did not foster a greater sense of remorse for what had been done).

Returning to the Spanish case, I wonder how it is that this person could not have been sentenced to doing some community service instead(?)

i´m confused: origins, influences, and descriptors

2009-01-30T07:06:00.002Z

I found the following two wikipedia entries of semiotic etc interest:

Kwame Anthony Appiah (born 1954 in London) is a Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history.

and

A. M. (Tony) Honoré (b.1921) is a British lawyer and jurist, known for his work on ownership, causation and Roman law.
Honoré was born in London but was brought up in South Africa.

Question: why is Appiah described as Ghanaian, and Honoré as British?

Kwame Anthony Appiah: born in London, raised in Ghana, educated in Britain.

Tony Honoré: born in London, raised in South Africa, educated in South Africa and Britain.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Anthony_Appiah and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Honor%C3%A9

I could "speak volumes", but let´s leave it at that, for now.

Especial documental Destinos Clandestinos

2008-11-20T01:12:00.004Z

Here is a documentary, and subsequent interview with the filmmaker and one of the fellow passengers, screened on Spanish television, about the quest of countless Africans to arrive (after risking life and limb on the high seas) on Spanish soil. Dominique Mollard went undercover for a period of years in order to tell and reveal the more human face behind the almost-daily reports of illegal immigration into Spain.
It is well worth watching, even if you don´t understand Spanish.

From the rtve web site:

11-11-2008 Documental único, obra del francés Dominique Mollard, quien, tras 26 meses de trabajo, logró embarcarse en un cayuco para retratar como nunca antes se había hecho -el combate a vida o muerte- al que se enfrentan miles de africanos que buscan una vida mejor más allá de nuestras costas. Pepa Bueno, entrevista al propio Mollard y a una de las pasajeras del cayuco.

And the video.

voices of africa

2008-11-11T02:14:00.006Z

I´ve been trying to get a sense of Obamania in South Africa as I sit perched here at a distance in the UK, but scanning the daily SA papers online, the reporting (those that I could gain unpaid access to) always seemed to me rather low-key. I also saw the odd congratulatory facebook status message whizz by (if that´s any useful indication) from a handful of South African friends, but not many. And this seeming lack of enthusiasm (don´t know what else to call it) seemed all the more odd, as in contrast, I´d seen reporting not only on Kenyans taking to the streets celebrating Barack Obama´s win (with even an official day of holiday thrown in for good measure), but also earlier today I´d read an article in the El País reporting on how excited Africa was about the Obama win (not forgetting that the story only profiled, in very brief paragraphs, about six or seven countries in toto, all sub-saharan).

That said, moments ago I´d stumbled across the following series of stories published by the Mail & Guardian in South Africa, titled "Voices of Africa". The series seems to me a splendid idea. Here (below) is how it describes its aims and remit. About half of the current submissions (at the time of writing this post) report on the country-specific responses to Barack Obama.
One criticism: I do think that "Voices of Africa" could include North African voices in their offering too.

The blurb:

About Voices of Africa
Life in Africa: a one-dimensional struggle to survive war, poverty, corruption and disease; an ongoing saga of famine and failure. Recognise the story?

It's the one most often presented to newspaper readers and other media consumers. We know it's not the whole story. We know these are not the only stories.

Voices of Africa is an ambitious new publishing venture by the Mail & Guardian, which aims to show how we live in Africa, not how we die; how we thrive as multifaceted humans, not merely as survivors. It is an ongoing series of lively articles written by Africans about life in "their" Africa -- ordinary people getting on with their own lives, often in the face of adversity.

Where and how we live might partly determine our behaviour and attitudes. But there are universal joys and tribulations that bind us: we fall in love, we have families, we get older, we watch TV, play, gossip, fight with our bosses, laugh with our friends, shop, worry about our health, our children, our budgets … We publish a selection of exclusively commissioned stories that give us glimpses across the fence into the daily lives, loves and frustrations of our neighbours -- beyond the usual headlines. Voices of Africa is a dynamic series-in-progress and today we take our first "baby steps".

In the next months we will continue to scout for fresh, original voices from a growing number of countries, bringing our readers weekly insights into the experiences of the people who call some small corner of this continent home.

As Voices of Africa grows, we will also launch a more complete online version of the series, about which we'll keep readers posted. To capture as rich and diverse a range of voices that truly represents the continent, we will also commission and translate suitable articles written in French.

Though the nature of this exciting series excludes South African contributions, we hope our readers will help us to grow Voices of Africa into a unique and compelling series by spreading the word among their friends and acquaintances in other African countries.

Welcome to our Africa, explored as never before.

Click here for details about how to "audition" for Voices of Africa.

Contact us
Anglophone correspondence to Charlotte Bauer: charlotteb@mg.co.za
Francophone correspondence to Stephanie Wolters: stephanie@okapi.cc
Tel: +27 11 250 7300

republish: 20 july 2002

2008-11-09T14:24:00.003Z

Between January 2002 and November 2005, I blogged in simple html markup on my homepage. In November 2005 I finally switched to blogger when I thought that their design sense had caught up with their technical sense (I´d always seen a site´s design as integral to its message, and in the early blogging days, the blogging templates were just plain ugly.) Anyway, I´d compiled all those old posts into one document recently, and will, from time to time, republish some of them here I think. In those days (a mere six years ago, but a lifetime ago it feels) my blog postings were ordered by date, and had no titles. The posting below refers largely to Spain, but also makes reference to the then situation in Zimbabwe.
What strikes me about the posting is the sheer absence of hyperlinks (This (dodgy memory aside) I can only ascribe to that there was a time when access to the Spanish newspaper had been gated, so maybe hyperlinking then made no sense.) I´ve added in the links this time.
[Searching the Prisacom archives online (parent company of the El País) there is a surfeit of articles dated 19 July 2002, a number of them published in the El País of that day/date. Below I´ve linked to the article that seems the most likely source I had referred to then.]
The reference to Madrid is of my stay there in 2000.

[20-July-2002]

The Battle for Parsley Island. Spain vs. Morocco. Never knew 'perejil' = 'parsley'. I guess this would indicate that I never needed to order in parsley whilst in Madrid. One piece I read about this 'battle' quoted Jorge Luis Borges, saying that it was like two bald men fighting over a comb. I've read an opinion piece ayer in El Pais which claims that Spain is just as 'in the wrong' as Morocco. Kudos to the Spanish press.

This makes me think of anti-immigration sentiment which is on the rise, more pointedly in Western Europe, but I suppose elsewhere also. For instance, I recall the scare-mongering which took place at about the time when SA finally decided to raise an opinion about the goings-on in Zimbabwe. It was soon after the elections there earlier this year. SA made a dimplomatic about-turn and felt the need to assist. Before it was "we respect their sovereignty and cannot intervene", whilst so many were reportedly being hounded and intimidated, not to mention the violent land appropriations, and the constitution being tampered with by their President. And then finally, to save face it seems, we (as in SA) felt the need to assist, saying that 'the elections were over, we respect the result and to move forward we must assist our neighbour'. After all, food security is an issue for Southern Africa due to drought. Suddenly we must assist since 'if we don't they'll be knocking on our doorstep' (Pallo Jordan's words at an address at the University). Once upon a time it was the 'rooi gevaar'(communist threat), and the 'swart gevaar' (pan-Africanist threat), now it's the 'drought gevaar'...

Ah, lest I forget. Carlos Fuentes wrote a very good opinion piece in the El Pais of 12 July titled 'Migraciones impunes y castigadas' (Punished and unpunished migrations). He makes the point, highlighting various historic events between 1503 and 2002, that many societies have evolved to what they are today due to the mass migration of people. People who travelled without visas and work permits. For instance: Western Europe owes its development due to the exploitation of Latin America. He quotes a contemporary Spanish economist, Alonso de Carranza, who claims that 75% of the treasure brought to Spain in 1629 was re-dispersed in Protestant Europe. Fuentes adds that the exploitation of (Latin) America led to the decadent power of Spain and the rise of capitalism in Europe. All without visas and work permits.

I translate some more:

Massachusetts, 1620. English Puritans without visas nor work permits, establish New England. From there anglosaxon America expands from the Atlantic to the Pacific, wresting land from the Indians, importing African slaves and annexing half the Mexican territory.

Pennsylvania, 1753. The Humanist and scientist Benjamin Franklin, future chief protagonist of US Independence, complains bitterly about the immigration of Germans to Pennsylvania. "They will create..." says Franklin, "...great disorder among us...They will never learn English, which will mean that we will always require interpreters. They will surpass us in number... so much so that we will not be able to preserve our language and even our government will be under threat." Fuentes goes on to mention the colonization of India by Clive in 1757, Algeria in 1830 (Start of colonization of Africa (in earnest) by Europe), New York in 1910 (17 million Europeans immigrated to the USA between 1880 and 1910, among these Irish fleeing the potato famine), Europe in 1963 (700 000 Spanish, mostly male farm labourers, migrate across the Pyrennees. Sending their earnings back to Spain they boost the Spanish economy, preparing it for a modern post-Franco era), California 1994 (California produces 1/3 of the agricultural riches in the USA, and 3/4 of the latter is derived from Mexican migrant labour.), etc. The main points of Fuentes' article being that this mix of cultures occurred without visas and work permits, and that eventually the riches of the developed nations is in large part dependent on migrant labour. Now, in Western Europe it seems there is great fear and loathing due to the migrant workers who run from the Southern hemisphere to the North. But as Fuentes illustrates so well, the mass migration of people has always occurred, with the concomitant fear and loathing, but that this is how cultures evolve, and have evolved.

el mundo - juan josé millás

2008-11-06T16:24:00.004Z

Some weeks ago I´d read the novel "El mundo" by Juan José Millás. Without a doubt it is one of the best novels I´ve read in recent years, not only for its simple (uncomplicated) prose, but more so for its absolute honesty. And I mean here the honesty of the narrator who is Millás telling us about his childhood, and about later encounters with one or two of those same childhood friends. For instance, he writes about his childhood notions of a "barrio de los difuntos" - a neighbourhood of the dead. This ghostly lustre of the neighbourhood has more to do with its opulence (so very unlike his own neighbourhood); a neighbourhood that he strays into one day as he makes an improvised tram journey away from home if only to disperse the (now shredded) evidence of the banknote he´d pilfered from his father´s jacket pocket. You´ll have to read the novel to find out why he was taking the money to start with... It is entirely endearing the way he narrates the logic and thinking of his childhood self; those pivotal friendships and moments as one grows up (He tells of being besotted with a girl, only for her to turn to him at some point saying "you´re not interesting to me". And he then toys with the sentence, inserting pauses and punctuation so as to give it a varied meaning, wondering at the same time which of his interpretations were the most accurate.) The moments he narrates are often hilarious and at times so very poignant.

In an interview (see video) he mentions that the novel is being translated into a number of languages, but it seems, unfortunately, English isn´t one of them. Not yet anyway. What a great pity, since it seems so universal, the essence of the story that he tells.

musings: watching history unfold + voting

2008-11-05T13:37:00.003Z

For all my previous musings on how history is written and of how one decides in the present on what is or will be historically significant, undoubtedly the electoral triumph of Barack Obama was one of those moments when you knew that history was unfolding before your very eyes. What a proud moment for US citizens, and heartfelt congratulations to them.

Watching them exercise their vote very much served to remind me of how I (and many fellow South Africans who will find themselves abroad when South Africa has its next national elections in 2009) will not be able to do the same since SA makes no provision for overseas voting. Knowing this leaves nothing less than a stabbing pain in my heart (no exaggeration), since I recognise that many men and women have died and suffered, so that I and others who had been deprived of the vote in apartheid SA, could have suffrage.

One of the ways in which SA´s democracy still needs to evolve, is to recognise that these days, it´s not only disaffected South Africans who find themselves abroad, and that the hard-won vote should not be so easily lost/forfeited due to geographical distance.

PS: Re the US elections, I hope Shirley Chisholm is smiling down from some heavenly cloud somewhere.

internet energy consumption 2

2008-11-03T14:20:00.005Z

This is a follow-up to my post of 29 October. After having watched the Newsnight programme I can only conclude that matters are still vague if not sketchy with regard to a "green Internet". The key terms (buzzwords / -phrases) are "cloud computing", "virtualisation", and "follow the moon". The first two you´ve probably heard about by now, since they have been bandied about for at least the past 18+ months.
Since I´ve always written my blog with a non-specialist audience in mind, that audience-notion now becomes muddled as I have the postings fed on over to the feed at the OII. But let me explain anyway, in a way that I might have done had I still been teaching undergraduate ICT courses.

Recall the early mainframes-and-dumb-terminals computing model. Now transfer that notion to the Web, where we now have Web services (think Gmail, GoogleDocs, etc). Cloud computing differs from Web services (conceptually) in so far as the number and diversity of services that can be delivered from "the cloud".
Virtualisation can be understood as the maximisation of computing resources (at the level of the platform, processing resources, and/or application) (think here "one box, delivering many and disparate services or functions).
The term "follow the moon" can be understood as a way in which to distribute energy-hungry computer processing to areas of the planet where energy-demand is at its relative lowest e.g. if demand for computer processing is high, say in daytime London, let the energy needs for that processing be met from a spot anywhere on the planet where it is night-time. (Two additional methods not mentioned in the tv programme, were "follow the sun", and "follow the law". See more on this in Kevin Kelly´s post.)
Another option proferred in the programme was the location of server farms on (very) cold spots on the planet e.g. Iceland, which does away with the need to manufacture cooling of these farms.

So can we imagine then a world where all of the above solutions were applied? And if so, would that lead to significant reductions in CO2 emissions from the Internet industries and our collective computing activities? That still has to be demonstrated. For now, what is said is that already the CO2 emissions from our computing activities equal that of the car manufacturing industry, and are set to match those of the airline industry in 2020.

As an aside: Cloud computing is not uncontroversial. See, for instance, the piece "Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman (The Guardian newspaper)"

See also: Guide To Cloud Computing (InformationWeek) ; Virtualization (Wikipedia).

internet energy consumption

2008-10-29T22:20:00.003Z

Two years ago I blogged on the energy consumption needs of the Internet, making the point that if African countries truly wanted to compete, how were they to do so if they (more than others) lacked scarce energy and water resources. My thinking then had been prompted by an article on massive server farms /data stores in the August 28, 2006 issue of Fortune magazine (European edition). Of interest still are the questions I´d posed in my 1-Sept-2006 posting, which rang as follows:

Okay, so, the article "The future of computing (part one)". Some excerpts:

"Most people don´t think of it this way, but the Information Age is being built on an infrastructure as imposing as the factories and mills of yore....To handle this change [of software becoming webified], Internet companies are building their own [data] centers..."

And what data centers need are:

ground, acres and acres of it
electricity, not only to operate the servers but also to cool all those processors chugging away (e.g. "...for every dollar a company spends to power a typical server, it spends another dollar on a/c [air-conditioning] to keep it cool.")
water, for cooling purposes, as increasingly alternative means are being explored to keep server farms cool.
moral of the story?

even in the information age, we come back to the same basic ingredients for the infrastructure needed at base.
seriously, where does this leave Africa in the race to be part of the Info Age?
greater moral of the story?
we are running low on fossil fuels, and water, on the planet (among other things, admittedly). the info age was supposed to signifiy a reduction in the demand for either of the two. instead, demand is only increasing. so, where does that leave us, after all?

It seems that my parting question of the energy-hungry Internet is to be addressed in this evening´s (Wed 29 Oct 2008) edition of Newsnight (a BBC current affairs programme). Susan Watts, the Science correspondent of said programme has blogged on the matter in anticipation of tonight´s episode. Reading the blog, it seems there is no clear answer as yet to how Internet companies expect to "go green", her having consulted IBM, Cisco, and Google. Thát, or maybe she´s saved the full answers for her broadcast... Once I´ve watched the episode on energy-hungry iplayer, I´ll let you know.

Reporting illegal net content

2008-10-28T13:37:00.003Z

A study by the UK´s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) reportedly found that 77% of adults do not know how nor where to report illegal content (child abuse images and criminal material) found online. The specific remit of the IWF covers "Child sexual abuse content hosted worldwide and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK".

Here follow excerpts from a recent news story:

Three quarters of adults using the internet who have "stumbled across" child pornography do not know how to report it.

Research by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) showed 77% of adults who had seen pictures of child abuse on the web did not know what to do about it.

This was despite 70% of users saying the availability of child sexual abuse images was their top concern when using the internet.

Peter Robbins, chief executive of IWF, said: "Internet consumers should know that if they do stumble across these images then it's vital to report them.

"We have international partnerships in place to get these websites removed."

If you are aware of illegal content on the Web, do make use of the IWF Reporting page. The IWF categories for reporting are as follows:

Child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world.
Criminally obscene content.
Incitement to racial hatred content.
Inappropriate chat or behaviour with or towards a child online

Should you be confused by what precisely each category covers, helpful definitions are given on the page, once an option has been clicked.

musings: paul preston + google/facebook

2008-10-26T23:10:00.004Z

The blog title may seem incongruous, so let me explain myself. Earlier this past week I´d attended a talk by Paul Preston, British historian and expert on the Spanish Civil War. His most recent book is just out, titled "We saw Spain die: Foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War". I will make one general note here on the talk, and then link up with my reference to Google/Facebook.

My first concerted exposure to notions of war journalism was years ago in my reading about George Steer (in Nicholas Rankin´s excellent work "Telegram from Guernica: the extraordinary life of George Steer, war correspondent". See a review here.) Preston´s book should be an excellent expansion of that knowledge. Interestingly, Paul Preston noted that there were about 1000 foreign correspondents in Civil War Spain, of whom about 15 were women. He also quoted Herbert Matthews as saying "Good journalism is the first draft of history."
So I sat there thinking whether this could (still) be said, about journalism in general, and whether it could (ever) have been said about tech journalism in particular. As this talk happened on the Monday, during much of the week that followed, I couldn´t help but notice the very frequent references to Facebook making the headlines. Sometimes the articles dealt with Facebook in particular, and at other times, it was more in a style of facebook-as-representative-of-the-downside-of-tech (even though, and of course, Facebook was touted in the catchy headline). (Hey, probably the week/month before it had been Google´s turn, right?...) And when Manuel Castells said later the week that the human mind functions in metaphor, I thought wryly, "but must it then be always in the lowly form of synecdoche?"...

Example of a piece dealing with Facebook:
"The internet grows up: Social networking sites like Facebook are now more popular than porn sites, but does that mean we want real relationships?"

Example of a piece where Facebook is referred to merely to gain one´s attention:
"37 países alertan de la indiscreción de Facebook"
(Translated: 37 Countries warn about the indiscretion of Facebook)
[Comment: The actual story here is about one of the resolutions (Resolution on Privacy Protection in Social Network Services) adopted by the most recent international meeting of the Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, warning about and advising on the risks of social networking per se, and not Facebook in particular.]

Example of a piece somewhere in-between the above two extremes:
"Boss uses Facebook to catch skiving worker: A call centre employee has been caught malingering after his boss checked his Facebook status"
[Comment: contrary to what it asserts, to me this piece is not about how managers are using SNSs to catch or vet employees. Rather, it seems to me a case of the blurring of the private and the professional, and also the private and the public.]

Returning to my point then about whether journalism here is the first draft of history, I can only say with a tiny sense of despair that this doesn´t necessarily apply to writings on technology. Of course, some would here invoke notions of technopanics, and that this journalism was representative of that dynamic at play. But still, it leaves me pondering which sources to ideally follow as one tries to do relevant work in this "Internet studies" domain.

study finds CT "capital of death by strangulation"

2008-10-23T09:43:00.004+01:00

The capital of death by strangulation
22 October 2008, 18:38 (http://www.capetimes.co.za/?fSectionId=&fArticleId=vn20081022121009939C711358)

Excerpts from an article by reporter Jade Witten:

Cape Town had the highest rate of strangulation of women in urban South Africa over a five-year period, a study has revealed.
...
Shahnaaz Suffla, lead author, and teammates looked at the distribution and patterns of homicide strangulation of women in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria.
...
Cape Town was the only city where the number of strangulations of women had increased annually over the period studied, from 17 in 2001 to 25 in 2005.
...
Suffla said most of the killings occurred in a domestic context in all four cities, suggesting that the perpetrator was an intimate partner or acquaintance of the victim.

"We will continue this project to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of the study as it contributes to the gendered homicide risk profile for a country (SA) which is considered to have one of the highest intimate female homicide rates in the world," she said.

FoI: press freedom index 2008

2008-10-22T16:06:00.006+01:00

File under: freedom of information

Reporters sans Frontières has today made available its 2008 ranking of countries w.r.t. press freedom; their finding that peace, more than economic stability, is guarantor of such freedom.

An excerpt:

“The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Destabilised and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms.
...
The ranking’s “soft underbelly” also includes countries that waver between repression and liberalisation, where the taboos are still inviolable and the press laws hark back to another era....
Online repression also exposes these tenacious taboos. In Egypt (146th), demonstrations launched online shook the capital and alarmed the government, which now regards every Internet user as a potential danger. The use of Internet filtering is growing by the year and the most repressive governments do not hesitate to jail bloggers. While China still leads the “Internet black hole” ranking worldwide, deploying considerable technical resources to control Internet users, Syria (159th) is the Middle-East champion in cyber-repression. Internet surveillance is so thorough there that even the least criticism posted online is sooner or later followed by arrest.

[Do read more...]

spain´s telecomms regulator gets a blog and twitters

2008-10-22T08:43:00.005+01:00

Spain´s national regulatory authority for telecommunications, the Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones (CMT) has launched a blog, as well as a presence on twitter.

They say:

CMT Blog no pretende ser una simple plataforma para la réplica de contenidos de la página web de la CMT o las resoluciones del regulador, sino una herramienta para comunicarse de manera sencilla y directa con todos los públicos:

Translated:

CMT Blog does not intend to be a simple platform for the replication of content from our homepage nor for its resolutions, but rather a tool to communicate simply and directly with all of our publics:

on the internet, nobody knows you´re a plant

2008-10-21T16:04:00.004+01:00

Lots of people are familiar with the early New Yorker cartoon which rang "On the Internet, nobody knows you´re a dog." If not, see here. But of course this is not the story for this post. No.
Rather, a news item just in reports on the apparent popularity in Japan of a pot plant which has its own blog. An excerpt (from the story, not the blog) below:

Engineer Satoshi Kuribayashi, who has been studying how to communicate with plants, helped Midori-san express herself.
He wired up the hoya kerrii, commonly known as a "sweetheart plant", to a sensor that measures bio-electric signals and translates them into Japanese using a computer algorithm.

tech case in our own backyard: speedster jailed - posted proof on YouTube

2008-10-21T11:26:00.006+01:00

An Oxfordshire (county) man has been jailed for 12 weeks by the Oxford Crown Court. Let it be noted that his having posted inculpatory video of himself on YouTube was not the thing that initiated moves to his arrest.

The court heard that when officers called at his home, before they had a chance to say anything to him, Ferenci asked them: "Is this about the YouTube video?"
Police then discovered that he had posted the video clips of himself on the internet.

Guess it´s a case of 15Mb of fame... More details here.

media portrayals of domestic violence & this is not about facebook

2008-10-19T21:37:00.003+01:00

"Man who killed wife over Facebook posting jailed for life"

Having lived in two societies where violence against women is much highlighted and railed against in the media, I am acutely aware of how public perception of domestic violence can be shaped (wittingly or unwittingly) by media accounts.

The story of a man who was recently sentenced to years of imprisonment for the murder of his estranged wife after his having been allegedly humiliated by her on a social networking site, caught my attention not only for the horribleness of what had occurred, but also in so far as the way in which it had been written up. To me, the write-up is problematic on a number of levels:

I find the descriptions of the violence entirely gratuitous. Would it have not been sufficient to say that the attacker had been fuelled by alcohol and cocaine? Any adult can infer that the consequences of violence fuelled in this way would be entirely brutal. Enough said. Why elaborate further on the detail? What is problematic here is that it makes the grotesque the norm. In a manner similar to the ways in which the intricate details of suicides are not published, so too the intricate details on violence against women need not be published and popularised in this way.

Even though the couple had been separated, the news story is not suffused with this fact. It refers throughout to the victim as "wife" rather than "estranged wife". My claim is that this trivializes the separation somehow, as a mere trifle, as something transitory. And this image is problematic in so far as it perpetuates a certain unsympathetic view of women (or men) who leave partnerships, and struggle to be taken seriously in their efforts.

Further, I see this news story as representative of yet one more instantiation of the "this is what happens when you go out on the Net" kind of scare story. The fact here that the victim had used a social networking site is circumstancial, and should hardly be read (nor implicitly flagged) as harbinger of the dangers of life online.

using ICTs to "promote" the arts

2008-10-19T16:00:00.004+01:00

I mean here "promote" in an expanded sense of the term.

Recently, the Royal Opera House has made available online in its entirety a recording of its recent (September 2008) production of Mozart´s Don Giovanni. Having watched the opera online, I was duly impressed by and enthralled with my Internet-based experience, and I thought it a wonderful form of outreach for the arts, generally, and performing arts, in particular. The reason being that, in addition to the performance per se being available, much was provided in this Internet-screening by way of context. For, in the main pane streamed the visual recording, whilst below this the surtitles (subtitles) streamed, and to the right of the video feed, was a pane containing text giving more details on the historical significance of the work, along with descriptions of the characteristics of Mozart´s music, etc. It seemed to me a great way with which to introduce new audiences to the work. Browsing around the ROH site generally, one can´t help but notice that the folks there are extremely tech-aware.

It is then with the above in mind that the following part of today´s interview in the El País with the soon-to-be ex-director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Philippe de Montebello, struck a chord:

"P: ¿Y en cuanto al futuro?

R: El reto mayor es cómo transmitir el sentido de tan formidable legado a las nuevas generaciones sin desvirtuarlo. No es fácil. Las encuestas ponen de relieve una alarmante falta de conciencia histórica entre los jóvenes. No es sólo una cuestión de ignorancia, sino de indiferencia, que es más grave. Las colecciones que alberga el Metropolitan no significan lo mismo para la mayoría de los jóvenes que para el público maduro. Si queremos que nuestra institución tenga sentido para la gente joven, las nuevas generaciones de comisarios y directores van a tener que estudiar y utilizar las herramientas de la comunicación. Es una de las razones por las que decidí dejar la dirección del Metropolitan. Nací antes de la II Guerra Mundial. Pertenezco a otra época. No me siento cómodo con las nuevas tecnologías."

My translation (emphasis added is mine):

Q: And the future?

A: The biggest challenge is of how to convey the sense of this formidable legacy to new generations without devalueing it in any way. It´s not easy. Surveys highlight an alarming lack of historical consciousness in the youth. It´s not only a question of ignorance, but also of indifference, which is the more problematic [of the two]. The collections that the Met houses do not have the same significance for the large majority of the youth compared to older audiences. If we want our institution to be meaningful to the youth, the new generation of curators and directors need to study and make use of the tools of communication. This is one of the reasons why I´ve decided to leave as director of the Met. I was born before the Second World War. I belong to a different age. I don´t feel comfortable with the new technologies.

history has judged so the courts should not?

2008-10-19T14:00:00.009+01:00

On the morning of Sunday 19 October I´d posted the below blog entry. It is now the early hours of 22 October, and more-or-less daily there have been follow-up media reports. It is with this in mind, that I would like to add (some links to articles and opinion pieces that have appeared. I leave my original post below (at the bottom) intact.

Some Spanish-language sources:

Josep Ramoneda opinion piece on the matter: Garzón, la derecha y el franquismo (21 Oct) (SPN)
Report on the Group of Experts nominated to assist Garzón in locating and identifying victim remains: Cuatro historiadores y un forense (21 Oct)(SPN)
The Attorney General´s response: El fiscal acusa a Garzón de crear "una inquisición" en su causa sobre la Memoria (20 Oct)(SPN)
An article in anticipation of the Attorney General´s response to Garzón: El fiscal cree que las atrocidades del franquismo fueron delitos comunes (20 Oct)(SPN)

Some English-language sources:

Giles Tremlett on Baltasar Garzón: Don Quixote - or a superhero? (19 Oct)(ENG)
Giles Tremlett: Franco repression ruled as a crime against humanity (17 Oct)(ENG)
Of related interest, although Spain is not mentioned at all, is a recent article by Timothy Garton Ash, titled "The freedom of historical debate is under attack by the memory police" and bylined "Well-intentioned laws that prescribe how we remember terrible events are foolish, unworkable and counter-productive". (16 Oct)

More particularly, I found that the following part of the Garton Ash article resonated w.r.t. the process that seems needed in Spain as regards the victims of Francoist repression:

"Let me be clear. I believe it is very important that nations, states, peoples and other groups (not to mention individuals) should face up, solemnly and publicly, to the bad things done by them or in their name. The West German leader Willy Brandt falling silently to his knees in Warsaw before a monument to the victims and heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto is, for me, one of the noblest images of postwar European history. For people to face up to these things, they have to know about them in the first place. So these subjects must be taught in schools as well as publicly commemorated. But before they are taught, they must be researched. The evidence must be uncovered, checked and sifted, and various possible interpretations tested against it."

My original posting of 19-Oct-2008:
---
This write-up is a response to the article titled <<Zapatero: "El franquismo está ya juzgado por la historia">> (Zapatero: "Francoism has already been judged by history.")
Spanish President José Luís Rodriguez Zapatero responded in this way, when asked to opine on the recent initiative undertaken by Judge Balthasar Garzón vis-a-vis prosecution for atrocities committed not only during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, but also those committed in the Spanish post-war (posguerra) period. (The Spanish postwar period should not be confused with the WWII postwar period. In some ways they sit quite separate.)

Zapatero´s response above suggests that since history has already exercised judgement, that this is where the buck stops. This is incorrect, and here´s why:

Garzón´s claims that what ocurred had been human rights abuses and therefore outside the scope of the 1977 amnesty seem entirely correct. Spain cannot for much longer hold itself up as the champion of human rights (e,g, the pursuit of Pinochet) without having a look in their own backyard. To continue to avoid dealing with the domestic matter is absurd. Further, the international (human rights) climate has changed in such a way that it is ripe for this kind of judicial judgment to be made/exercised/invoked. And given the timeline if we compare other atrocities the world over that have happened _after_ the Spanish Civil War and that have already been judged, Spain simply cannot afford to "look the other way" anymore. I feel that the international community is looking to Spain to clean up this blight on its human rights record. Yes, history _has_ judged. But any State that professes the virtues of the Rule of Law, cannot but make that this judgement also be a legal matter.

See also this English-language write-up of some days ago: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/victims-of-spanish-civil-war-to-be-exhumed-964423.html

Ofcom´s outgoing chief´s valedictory speech: some highlights

2008-10-18T18:00:00.004+01:00

David Currie, outgoing chief of the UK´s communications regulator, Ofcom, gave his valedictory speech.
The Guardian headline focuses on Currie´s assertion that Ofcom will likely have a wider regulatory remit, more especially over Internet content.
Haven´t we heard such talk for years vis-a-vis regulation of the Internet? By posing such a question, I am not saying by implication that such extension of its remit is necessarily the best way to go about things.
The question for me is, have we really reached the end of this "period of forbearance" and whether we are really at a point where we know what kind of regulation is indeed needed....

Some "non-Internet excerpts" below from said speech, that I found of interest:

"I personally dislike the term “light touch regulation”. Either it arrogantly assumes that the regulator knows everything that is going on in the market and can apply just the right, discerning, touch on the tiller to maximise wellbeing. No regulator is that omniscient. Or “light touch” means a palsied unwillingness to act, captive to the producer interest, when real detriment to the consumer is occurring.

Ofcom’s approach has three elements. First, a bias against intervention: a well-functioning market is the best safeguard of the consumer interest. Second, where intervention is necessary, a preference for the least intrusive form of intervention: for example, price publication rather than price controls, wholesale pricing rather than retail controls. But, thirdly, where intervention proves necessary being swift and decisive."
...

"Broadcast premium rate services probably affected more consumers, though the individual amounts involved were much lower. The pace from discovery to ‘cease and desist’ was swifter. Several broadcasters, who ought to have known better, came close to forfeiting wider public trust. Hefty fines were in order. They have learned that they too have a duty of care to individuals in the audience as consumer as well as to the mass audience as viewer.

For our part the two lessons learned were, first, that reliance on complaints-driven investigation and enforcement is not foolproof. If consumers do not know that they have been diddled they do not know to complain. We now have proactive audit controls in place. Secondly, that relationships with sister regulators must be on a very clear footing. Where the relationship is one where there are clear boundaries and handovers of regulatory power and responsibility, then a self-regulatory or co-regulatory relationship is possible, as we have with the ASA over broadcast advertising. Where the boundaries are ambiguous and the need for speed vital, a tauter ‘agency’ relationship, such as we now have with Phone Pay Plus, is appropriate."

...

"And as Ed Richards said two years ago in his first major speech as Chief Executive, the time has come to think again about the universal service obligation in a converged broadband world and to think radically. But it must be governments at a European (sic) that decide."
...

"Take-up of broadband is approaching 60 per cent of households. So, as I have said, a reappraisal of the Universal Service Obligation is timely. Today, BT funds the USO and it applies only to narrowband.

The European Commission has just kicked off the debate on this issue which ultimately is a European level decision. Ofcom will need to work closely with Government on the right policies for the UK and to influence the debate across Europe.

The analysis – if not necessarily the policy prescriptions – should be wide-ranging and from first principles. To what should a new USO extend? To what standard? Is mobile an acceptable substitute for fixed? Who pays? How?"

when the front door determines the info system setup

2008-10-15T18:49:00.003+01:00

i´ve just stumbled across a peculiar instance of how the physical still shapes the virtual (even though it doesn´t have to be the case). i have books due today at two libraries both feeding into and from the same library automation system. however, they are due at different branches, and this is important in so far as their effects go: the one closes (physically, lock & key) at 4pm (say) and the other at (6pm) . ostensibly the books are due 15 October (which suggests a 24hr time window). at 5pm i remember that i need to renew the loans, so dutifully sit down to do said renewal online. unfortunately i discover that since the 4pm-library has already closed its front doors, my book due there is now flagged as overdue. and probably the same would have happened had i sat down at 7pm in an attempt to renew both books (except then both would be flagged as overdue). but why let the hour of the closing of the front door be thing that determines the limit for renewal? since i am performing this transaction at 5pm, a full seven hours of 15 October are still on the horizon. why not set the system so that the overdue flagging only happens at midnight? would doing so mean fewer fines, hence less such revenue? i doubt it... so?

ENISA Quarterly Review, Q3 2008

2008-10-15T15:27:00.002+01:00

FYI:
the latest edition of ENISA Quarterly Review, 3rd Quarter 2008, is available online at ENISA's website.

see: http://www.enisa.europa.eu/eq/

This edition includes articles following a call for contributions related to "Security and Interoperability of eID".

Here is a quick sample of the articles you will find in this issue:

* A Letter from the Executive Director
* A Word from the Editor
* Electronic Identity Cards and Citizens' Portals
* eID Interoperability: the Key to Success in Europe
* eduGAIN - a Pan-European Confederation
* Privacy and Capability Management for the European eIDM Framework
* Common Criteria Protection Profiles for the Spanish eID-related Applications
* Complexity is the Achilles Heel of eID - the Swedish eID System
* Finnish Government Proposes Access to Employee Identification Data
* ENISA's Activities on eID - an Update
* Can Online Social Networks Qualify as Identity Management Systems
* Food for Thought: Can we be Green and Secure?
* An Interview with Kevin Mitnick - Social Engineering: No Silver Bullets

internet´s future

2008-10-14T19:41:00.007+01:00

a number of reviews of Jonathan Zittrain´s book "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It" have flown by in my mailbox in recent months. not that i´ve been following absolutely all of the reviews.
i´d attended at least two talks of Jonathan´s which were book-centric, as well as two other lectures that seemed to me more conceptually linked, though yet quite distinct from any book-talk. i´ve not read the book cover-to-cover yet (but have downloaded it!) so will merely and generally opine that there is always value in the cautionary tale.

i copy below part of a review of Zittrain´s book by Geert Lovink. the part of the review (though not quite having to do with the book per se...) that i found most interesting and most thought-provoking was with regard to the status/measure of one´s discipline (see below).
even so, i don´t quite agree with Lovink since it is not the case that all research in this area is merely a mapping exercise. further, there´s much value in trying to understand something before we try to shape it. experiences of colonialism ( to go off-topic a bit, yet still a salient analogy) attest to the folly in trying to shape something without (full) understanding.

"Funding bodies worldwide, categorically refuse to fund fundamental humanities research that,
like Zittrain, dares to look into the future. What we are left with are piles of PhDs that are condemned to remain unread as they merely map the impact the Internet on society–projects that are doomed to become history writing. How can we raise, and organize a new generation of technology-aware research that have the guts, and the creativity, to design a comprehensive field of critical concepts that can be implemented into code? We have to stop understanding the Internet, and start to shape it. That's the real Zittrain challange." (sic)

the entire Lovink review can be found in the nettime archive

but see also the more detailed Thierer review and commentary over at http://techliberation.com/2008/03/23/review-of-zittrains-future-of-the-internet/ and http://techliberation.com/2008/03/30/apple-openness-and-the-zittrain-thesis/

AccessInfo - Europe: Report on Spain: When Public Information is Not Public

2008-10-10T23:13:00.006+01:00

Here below a report from Access Info Europe, on freedom of information legislation in Spain. I´ve also included a link to a related article in the Spanish daily, the El País.
--
1 October 2008

Report on Spain: When Public Information is Not Public

Absence of a law and lack of political will in public institutions:
Citizens cannot receive the information they need.

A report by Access Info Europe published today reveals that of over forty requests filed with more than twenty public bodies in Spain during the past year, a full 78% did not receive the requested information.

The report “When Public Information is Not Public” sets out the unexpected and unacceptable answers by the Spanish administration in response to information requests. This study also analyses the major shortcomings of current law and practice in Spain which is hindering exercise of the right of access to information and citizen participation.

The study found that requests for infomation in Spain meet with a range of evasive responses: Ministries which keep silent when asked if Spain has included into national law the UN Convention Against Corruption, which it signed in 2000 (Ministry of Justice), or which refuse to provide information on the number of its buildings sold in 2007 (Ministry of Defence). Public officials who ask “but, can this information be given to ordinary people?” when asked about the meetings of the Minister with external interest groups (Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure), or who, when asked about the number of days that the President was outside the country, told the requestor by telephone “present your written request but you will not get this information” (Cabinet Office). Local governments which return unopened letters to the Mayor even when these contain an administrative appeal (Madrid Town Hall). All these are some of the worrying responses from the Spanish Administration used to deny access to information.

“The majority of the reasons given by public bodies for not providing the requested information are not in compliance with international principles on the right of access to information, nor are they in line with current practice in other European Union countries,” said Eva Moraga, author of the report.

“The fact that Spain does not have a specific law on access to information is permitting this type of behaviour by the Administration,” added Moraga.

The report reveals that the treatment of requests for access to information in Spain mixes the predominant administrative silence with paternalistic responses and abuse of the letter of the law to construct surprising grounds for denying access. Access Info Europe calls on the Spanish government to fulfil its electoral promise and to approve a law which replace the obscurantist Administrative culture with full recognition of the right of all persons to have full and equal access to all information held by public bodies.

In Spanish the report "Cuando lo público no es público"

Annex (in Spanish): The list of request

The El País piece: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/ley/regulara/acceso/informacion/publica/elpepisoc/20081008elpepisoc_7/Tes

Zimbabwe update

2008-06-22T16:57:00.003+01:00

year in and year out, depressing and sad news from Zimbabwe rolls into my mailbox. really, for how long must this situation go on?
---
first, the latest news from Cathy Buckle (you will note that South Africa is still the silent neighbour...), and then below that, a related news piece from Yahoo.

http://www.cathybuckle.com/june2008.shtml
Blanket of fear
Saturday 22nd June 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
A blanket of fear has descended over Zimbabwe as we count down the last few days before the second Presidential election. Our streets and towns are seething with police, army and youth brigade members. Our shops are empty of all basic foodstuffs; filling stations still have no diesel or petrol; water and electricity supplies are scarce; queues at banks and cash machines are immense and prices increase at least once every day. The trauma of living like this has been compounded a hundred fold as now each day brings news of terror, torture, kidnapping, burning and murder. The reports are of barbaric behaviour and extreme cruelty and they are coming from all over the country. The perpetrators move in groups; sometimes they come in the day but more often it is at night.

A report released this week by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights contains details of some of the victims of violence seen in the last month: men and women with broken arms and legs, fingers and toes, soft tissue damage to face, feet and buttocks; burns, lacerations and bruising. One patient the doctors described had been: " beaten extensively on the shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs, was also struck in the face and suffered a leak of vitreous humour (the transparent gel-like substance behind the lens of the eye) resulting in blindness."

Alongside the fear of physical violence is the rhetoric from the rallies whose words are now being quoted around the world. In the last few days Zanu PF leader Mr Mugabe has said on four different occasions:
"We are prepared to fight for our country and to go to war for it."
"We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?"
"The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country - never ever."
"Only God, who appointed me, will remove me, not the MDC, not the British."

Its hard to know what the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been saying as he's been detained by police five times, his rallies have been cancelled, his vehicle has been impounded and his secretary general is in police custody charged with treason. To further silence the MDC leader, and in obvious violation of electoral laws, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said that they wouldn't air campaign adverts from the opposition party. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa defended the ZBC's stance saying that international coverage favoured the MDC and never reported Zanu PF's position.

As silenced as Zimbabweans are, hope has come at last from our neighbours who have begun to speak out. This week Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said: "There is every sign that these elections will never be free nor fair," adding that he and the foreign ministers of Swaziland and Angola would write to their presidents "so that they do something urgently so that we can save Zimbabwe."

And now, beaten, bloodied, scared and in a state of mourning, we go to the polls again. We don't need the rallies and the speeches to know where to vote on the 27th of June.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy

----

Mugabe's rival Tsvangirai pulls out of election

By Nelson Banya Reuters - 2 hours 22 minutes ago

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off election against President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, saying a free and fair poll was impossible in the current climate of violence.

More can be read here

lo dice todo

2008-06-21T21:33:00.004+01:00

http://www.elpais.com/vineta/?d_date=20080620&autor=Romeu&anchor=elpporopivin&xref=20080620elpepivin_2&type=Tes&k=Romeu

Romeu

EDICIóN IMPRESA - 20 - 06 - 2008

Woman says: It is incongruent that it is more punishable to be innocent and an immigrant, than to be a delinquent but EU citizen.

Man replies: Europe and I, we are like this Señora.

is social study of the Internet akin to writing a history of the present?

2008-06-15T20:31:00.009+01:00

This weekend I´ve read two history books (Beevor on the spanish civil war, the other Garton Ash on Europe in the 1990s). And it is prompted by Timothy Garton Ash´s musings in the introduction to the volume named "History of the Present", that I now write here. I mention both books since they seem to deal with two different kinds of History scholarship: the one more traditional, the other not so; and so formed an interesting contrast for me.

In said introduction Garton Ash contemplates if not elucidates the differences between writing a history of the present versus writing journalism or say literature. What separates the first two from the third is "the kind of truth being sought" and that, for both History and Journalism the facts cannot be played "fast and loose" with. For one, he says that Historians always need at least thirty years to elapse before they tend to study an era or event what by then has been deemed to be "historical". And since his (Garton Ash´s) works have always been more about "the present", in the interstice between recording recent history as historian versus journalistic recording of what has happened, he goes on to distinguishing the two professions from one another, and in turn, from literature. As I read this intro it made me think about what differentiates good scholarly work in the area of studying the Internet, versus something as being more journalistic. For, after all, in studying technology, and in particular the Internet, are we not engaged in an exercise of writing, in a mode similar to Garton Ash, a kind of "history of the present"? In this regard, I wish Garton Ash would write a manual of praxis for his art/science, if only so that I could ponder more on what it can mean to do "social studies of the Internet". But then again, maybe my stance contradicts his closing "argument". He writes and concludes as follows:

"So I maintain that, for all its pitfalls, the literary enterprise of writing ´history of the present´ has always been worth attempting. It is even more so now, because of the way history is made and recorded in our time. And it has suffered from developments in the professions of journalism and academic history. Yet you can soon have enough of such methodological self-examination. Altogether, the habit of compulsive labelling, pigeon-holing and compartmentalizing seems to me a disease of modern intellectual life. Let the work speak for itself. In the end, only one thing matters: is the result true, important, interesting or moving? If it is, never mind the label. If it isn´t, then it´s not worth reading anyway."

(Garton Ash, T. 1999. History of the Present: Essays, sketches and despatches from Europe in the 1990s)

Links FYI publisher/purchasing info:

Garton Ash

Beevor

Media convergence sees PCC surveying Britons on SNS concerns

2008-06-06T09:42:00.003+01:00

The Press Complaints Commission has surveyed Britons on their concerns re social networking sites. I am surprised by this seeming extension of the PCC´s remit.

From the article:

"Nine out of 10 people think there should be tighter regulation of information on social networking websites, according to new research.
A survey found that most Britons believe sites such as Facebook and MySpace should be covered by rules that would help ordinary people complain about intrusive material posted online"

There is a suggestion of Internet self-regulation lite, though I´m not sure what that means entirely... Since the PCC is involved in this study, the conceptual link with abuse of information by the media is there, but is this kind of abuse really of the sort we should most be concerned about?

SNSs might be regulated in the EU

2008-06-04T20:02:00.004+01:00

Here below follows a brief report from EDRI on ENISA´s call for legislation addressing social networking sites. I´ve checked my mail, and ENISA, funnily enough, has not yet announced the below proposal to registrants. Let it be said that ENISA has thus far concerned itself with online _security_, not to be confused with online _safety_. As such, their discourse to date has tended to focus on and at the level of the hardware or code, i.e. systems, rather than direct people-safety.

But considering social networking, isn´t it that you are only as vulnerable as the weakest link in your friendship chain? If you don´t "friend" just anyone, and cordon off your profile to a limited set, you might smugly sit back and think that you´re safe from your details being snatched. But what if one or a couple of your friends are, let´s call them "digitally promiscuous" -- they friend anyone and everyone -- where does that leave the user intent on being more prudent in their social networking habits? Just a thought. Nothing original about it.

I have yet to read the ENISA report btw.

-----
EDRI-gram - Number 6.11, 4 June 2008
Social networking sites might be regulated in EU
4 June, 2008» Privacy Security
On 27 May 2008, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) called for new legislation that would regulate social networking sites. ENISA, which was created in 2004 to oversee online security measures in the 27 EU countries, issued a preliminary report of its General Report in which it pointed out that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace need more regulation to protect their users against security risks. "Social networking sites are very useful social tools but we must make recommendations for how to better protect people from the risks these sites create," said Andreas Pirotti, executive director of ENISA and author of the report. He suggested the EU legislation should be expanded in order to "cover the taking of photos of people and posting them on the internet".

In Pirotti's opinion, network security is under a permanent threat from spammers or criminals. "Internet security is extremely important, considering how much business takes place online now. We don't want infrastructures to be disrupted, we don't want a digital 9/11 to happen," he said. He also considers crucial to "raise awareness about how social networking sites work. Few people realize that they can be offered up as friends to people they don't know. Also, many people don't realize that it's almost impossible to erase material once it has appeared on the internet".

Some of the threats related to social networking identified by ENISA are related to face recognition, digital dossiers, reputation damage, social engineering attacks on enterprises, phishing attacks, ID theft and others. The report of the organisation includes 19 recommendations to social networks on ways to improve their security practices.

Among other things, ENISA calls for a regulatory review of social networking frameworks, an increased transparency of data handling practices, more education for users on security, and the discouragement or even banning of social networking in schools.

A study conducted by enterprise IT management company CA and the National Cyber Security Alliance in 2006 found out that the majority of users of social networking sites were not very aware of the security issues involved. 83 percent of them admitted having downloaded unknown files from unknown users and 74 percent said that they were easily providing the personal data online. Also, a Symantec report issued in 2007 showed that social networking sites offer easy pickings for phishers. The security practices of the respective sites make it easier to invade and to spread attacks to more people.

Top EU security agency calls for policing of social network (27.05.2008)
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/27/EU-security-agency-wants-social-network-scrutiny_1.html...

EU may regulate social networking sites over security issues (27.08.2008)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080527-eu-may-regulate-social-networking-sites-over-security-issues.html...

ENISA General Report 2007 - adopted, non designed version
http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/publications/AGR_full_disclaim.pdf

Say no to the Repatriation Directive - Sign the appeal

2008-06-01T22:10:00.004+01:00

Véase también http://www.directivadelaverguenza.org/

Appeal to the Members of the European Parliament

On the 18th of June 2008, a proposal for a directive concerning the detention and deportation of immigrants will be submitted to the European Parliament.

Since 1990, the policies of European governments with respect to immigration and asylum have resulted in a continuous reduction of the guarantees and fundamental protections of the people they affect. Europe is becoming a locked-down fortress and uses disproportionate means to prevent access to its territory and to deport unauthorised migrants.

The project before the European Parliament, if it were to be adopted, would represent yet another regression.
In foreseeing detention that could be extended up to 18 months for people whose only offence is to want to live in Europe, it holds to an inhuman logic : generalizing a policy of confinement for aliens could become the normal way of treating migrant populations.
In establishing a five-year ban from Europe for all people who are expelled, this project stigmatises the illegal immigrants and transforms them into delinquents who must be deported.

The proposed directive which will be presented to the Parliament is the first in this domain to be submitted to a procedure of co-decision with the Council of Ministers. The Parliament therefore has the possibility to once and for all put an end to this policy which goes against the human values at the heart of the European project and which give it its meaning.

Today, the Members of the European Parliament have an historical responsibility : act as to not let Europe fall back to the dark era of segregation between nationals and undesirables through the systematisation of detention camps and forced repatriation.

We call on the Members of the European Parliament to assume their responsibility and reject this project.

More information / Plus d'information
Why we are against this directive : English - French - Spanish - Italian

10 réponses à 10 idées fausses sur ce projet de directive : French

Text amended by the COREPER - April 2008 : English - French

Report of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs : English - French - Spanish - Italian

Initial proposal of the European Commission (text amended by the report above) : English - French - Spanish - Italian

Freedom of Information: a Comparative Legal Survey (2nd ed. revised & updated)

2008-06-01T15:15:00.002+01:00

Full text available from: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/26159/12054862803freedom_information_en.pdf/freedom_information_en.pdf

From the UNESCO site:

The importance of the right to information or the right to know is an increasingly constant refrain in the mouths of development practitioners, civil society, academics, the media and governments. What is this right, is it really a right and how have governments sought to give effect to it? These are some of the questions this book seeks to address, providing an accessible account of the law and practice regarding freedom of information, and an analysis of what is working and why.

Anoche cuando dormía (Machado)

2008-06-01T15:10:00.002+01:00

Anoche cuando dormía

Anoche cuando dormía
soñé, ¡bendita ilusión!,
que una fontana fluía
dentro de mi corazón.
Di, ¿por qué acequia escondida,
agua, vienes hasta mí,
manantial de nueva vida
de donde nunca bebí?
Anoche cuando dormía
soñé, ¡bendita ilusión!,
que una colmena tenía
dentro de mi corazón;
y las doradas abejas
iban fabricando en él,
con las amarguras viejas
blanca cera y dulce miel.
Anoche cuando dormía
soñé, ¡bendita ilusión!,
que un ardiente sol lucía
dentro de mi corazón.
Era ardiente porque daba
calores de rojo hogar,
y era sol porque alumbraba
y porque hacía llorar.
Anoche cuando dormía
soñé, ¡bendita ilusión!,
que era Dios lo que tenía
dentro de mi corazón.

Poem by Antonio Machado

2008-04-09T19:10:00.003+01:00

Last Night As I Was Sleeping
by Antonio Machado

(Translation by Robert Bly)

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error!-
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error!-
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error!-
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error!-
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

APC: new book on WSIS, developing countries and civil society

2007-09-17T10:38:00.000+01:00

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay -- The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has been roundly criticised in the past and this new study from APC concludes that the summit “is not the best starting point for new action.” So, what is the point of looking at how developing country delegations and civil society fared at the summit? Because, says the author “it is always important to learn from experience – particularly where it did not deliver up to expectations.”

The book “Whose Summit? Whose Information Society? Developing countries and civil society at the World Summit on the Information Society”, commissioned by APC and written by David Souter draws on participants’ observations, detailed interviews with forty key actors and case studies of experiences rooted in five developing countries.

WSIS holds many lessons for developing countries and civil society organisations aiming to exert greater influence in international ICT decision-making fora. Some lessons demonstrate what worked well – such as the highly successful, multi-stakeholder Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The majority illustrate what did not work so well – not least, holding a four-year long meeting on such a fast-changing topic.

Read a one-page introduction.
Interview with “Whose Summit? Whose Information Society?” author David Souter to discuss the study’s findings, as well as what lessons can be gathered from the WSIS experience – for developing countries, civil society, and in general by APCNews.
Download the full book here [in English; pdf format].
Download the abridged versions (part of APC's Issue Papers series) in English, Spanish and French:

Five case studies of experience in five developing countries were commissioned for the main report:

Author: --- (APCNews)

Contact: communications@apc.org

Source: APCNews

Date: 09/12/2007

Location: MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay

Category:

Urgent Action re Council of Europe Treaty on Access to Docs

2007-08-31T12:03:00.000+01:00

fyi: FOI = freedom of information

There are sign-up letters for Civil Society, NGOs, and individuals.
See http://www.access-info.org

--
*From:* Helen Darbishire [mailto:helen.darbishire@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 28, 2007 8:18 PM
*To:* foianet@foiadvocates.net
*Cc:* helen@access-info.org
*Subject:* [foianet] Urgent Action re Council of Europe Treaty on Access
to Docs.
*Importance:* High

Madrid, 28 August 2007

**

*Dear FOI Advocates*

*Access Info Europe*, *Article 19 *and the *Open Society Justice
Initiative *are today launching a campaign to call for the future
European Convention on Access to Official Documents, currently in
preparation by the Council of Europe, to meet international standards
and to ensure adequate protection of the right to information.

*We are urging all FOI Advocates around the world to join the campaign
through a sign-up letter (attached) and other actions (listed below).*

*The problem*: If the current draft of the Convention is adopted it will
become the world’s first treaty to guarantee the right of access to
information but it will fall below prevailing European and international
standards, thereby flying in the face of the enormous progress made in
the past several years. The final drafting session will take place in
Strasbourg during 9-12 October 2007.

The future Convention will establish a right to request “official
documents”, which are broadly defined as all information held by public
authorities, in any form. On the positive side, the Convention will
establish that the right to “official documents” can be exercised by all
persons with no need to demonstrate a particular interest in the
information requested, and at no charge for filing requests and viewing
documents.

However, the draft treaty has a number of serious flaws :

*1. *Failure to include all official documents held by legislative
bodies and judicial authorities within the mandatory scope of the treaty;

*2. *Failure to include official documents held by natural and legal
persons insofar as they perform public functions within the mandatory
scope of the treaty;

*3. *Failure to specify certain basic categories of official
documents, such as those containing financial or procurement
information, that must be published proactively.

*4. *Absence of a guarantee that individuals will have access to an
appeals body which has the power to order public authorities to disclose
official documents.

*5. *Absence of a guarantee that individuals will be able to appeal
against violations of the right of access other than "denial" of a
request (such as unjustified failures to provide access in a timely
fashion or in the form preferred by the requester).

*6. *Lax drafting of exceptions that permit withholding of official
documents under the internal deliberations and commercial interest
exemptions:

*a. *There are no time limits on the application of the internal
deliberations exemption; such documents may be withheld indefinitely,
even after a final decision on the matter has been taken;

*b. *The treaty should protect only “legitimate commercial
interests,” not all and any “commercial interests,” as in the present
draft.

*7. *Absence of a requirement that states set statutory maximum
time-limits within which requests must be processed.

More analysis of these problems can be found in the attached documents.

The final drafting session in Strasbourg starts on 9 October 2007. We
need to take action now to convince governments of the 47 member
states of the Council of Europe to insist on improvements to the draft
Convention before it is finalized. We plan to use International Right to
Know Day, 28 September 2007, to highlight these concerns.

*ACTION: **Attached is a sign up letter to the drafting group**. *We
are aiming for as many signatures as possible from NGOs (civil society
groups) and individuals across Europe and around the world by 28
September. You can sign up by writing to me (helen@access-info.org

or helen.darbishire@gmail.com
), or to the e-mail address
treaty@access-info.org . The deadline for
signing is 17 hrs CET (5 pm) on Wednesday 26^th September, so that we
can release it to the media for coverage on 28th September.

Please encourage other NGOs to sign as well. All human rights and other
civil society groups should care about this issue and are welcome to
sign the letter. Interested individuals can also sign. A copy of the
letter and a sign-up link can be found on the home page of Access Info:
www.access-info.org , along with more
information.

A copy of the draft treaty can be found via a link on the Access Info
home page.

* *

*The attached document gives a list of WHAT YOU CAN DO and these ideas
are copied below. These actions are mainly for people in the 47 Council
of Europe member states, but others are welcome to do whatever they can
to support the campaign: this treaty will have a global relevance!! *

* *

*/Access Info Europe (Helen Darbishire and Eva Moraga) is coordinating
the campaign, liaising with Article 19 (Daniel Simons) and the Justice
Initiative (Sandra Coliver, Darian Pavli and Eszter Filippinyi). Please
contact any of us to discuss what action you can take! Here are some
ideas: /*

* *

• */Contact your representatives in the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe/*: Every Council of Europe member state sends
parliamentarians to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE). If possible, meet with your country’s representatives and call
on them to raise the issue in the next session of the Parliamentary
Assembly in Strasbourg.

The national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly are listed here
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_DelegationsList_E.asp

• */Get the support of other NGOs/*: Translate information about the the
problems with the Convention into your language and distribute it to
other civil society groups: encourage them to sign the letter. This
issue is relevant to human rights groups, environmentalists, consumer
groups, women’s and youth groups … anyone who needs information should
care about this issue!
• */Spread the word/*: Let other interested communities know about the
issue and call on them to take action and disseminate the news:
archivists, librarians, bloggers, and academics (such as in faculties of
communication, law, political science, etc) are among the groups of
people who are likely to care about this issue and help raise concerns.
• */Discuss with Information Commissioners/**/:/* If your country has an
Information Commissioner, let them know about this issue and discuss
what joint actions you might be able to organise, such as a public
debate of the right to information. In other countries it is possible
that Data Protection Commissioners and Human Rights Ombudspersons would
be interested in the issue and ready to participate in public
discussions or talk to members of government.
• */Write to your government/*: Write to your Head of Government
(President or Prime Minister as appropriate) and the Ministers of
Justice and Foreign Affairs and call on them to urge their
representatives at the Council of Europe to take action to press for the
treaty to meet the minimum standards. Get as many national NGOs as
possible to sign the letter to your government.
• */Brief the politicians/*: Try to meet with government representatives
to explain the issues to them – find out what their opinion is and if
they will support the call for a strong treaty.
• */Try for a parliamentary resolution/*: Brief parliamentarians and,
where possible, urge them to adopt a resolution calling for the treaty
to meet minimum standards (declarations of support from political
parties could also be helpful).
• */Brief the media/*: Tell journalists (especially those who write
about access to information) about the problems and get them to write
stories: ask them to ask the government what it is doing to ensure the
treaty meets the highest standards. Let the media know that on September
28, International Right to Know Day, there will be news about how many
groups have signed the NGO letter as well as about actions taking place
all across Europe.
• */Right to Know Day Special Actions/*: On 28 September, in addition to
your regular Right to Know Day activities, take some special action to
promote awareness of the Council of Europe treaty problem. Keep an eye
on the Access Info Europe website for the latest news on what groups are
doing around Europe and how many NGOs have signed the joint letter.

_Countries with representatives on the Groups of Specialists _are
Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and United
Kingdom.

_Other countries may participate in the discussions_ – Slovenia was one
such participant in the July 2007 drafting session. Since all 47 Council
of Europe member countries have a representative in Strasbourg, it may
be that your government can send this person (or another appropriate
representative such as the Information Commissioner from your country)
to make a contribution to the final treaty drafting session.

*Need more info? *

If you would like to know more about how the process in Strasbourg works
and to discuss what action to take, please feel free to call us:

Access Info tel: +34 91 743 14 73 and ask for Helen or Eva.

Helen mobile : + 34 667 685 319, or via Skype: helen_darbishire.

_______________
Helen Darbishire
Executive Director
*Access Info Europe*
calle Principe de Anglona 5, 2c
28005 MADRID - Spain
mobile: + 34 667 685 319
helen@access-info.org or
helen.darbishire@gmail.com
Skype: helen_darbishire
www.access-info.org

2nd Call for Applications: Civil Society Practitioners Programme

2007-08-28T12:29:00.000+01:00

Reminder: Application deadline 26 September 2007

Oxford Internet Institute
Civil Society Practitioners Programme

Invitation to apply

The Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) invites applications from the global South to fill two places in its Civil Society Practitioners Programme.

This visitor programme is intended for Civil Society Practitioners of distinction or outstanding promise who wish to visit the Institute for a period of six weeks between February and December 2008, to undertake research concerning the social impact of the Internet and related ICTs. Visitors are expected to reside in Oxford during their stay, and to participate fully in the intellectual life of the Institute. The successful applicants will receive:

* A subsistence allowance of 3800 GBP (7500 USD) to cover research expenses and living costs during their stay in Oxford
* A travel grant of up to 1000 GBP (2000 USD) for travel to and from the UK

Applications will ideally be submitted by Civil Society Practitioners in or from the global South, active in the areas of freedom of expression, media reform, media justice, and communications and information policy in the globalized context of the Internet.

How to apply

For details on how to apply, please download:
Information for Applicants (PDF, 45kb) at http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/CSPP_Application_Information.pdf

You may also request to have this information emailed to you in plain text form. The deadline for completed applications to reach the OII Academic and Student Affairs Officer (by post or email: contact details below) is 26 September 2007. Please note that incomplete applications cannot be considered.

Final notification of an award will occur in November 2007. Successful candidates will be expected to take up their six week residency in Oxford at any time between February and December 2008.

Contact
Laura Taylor
Academic and Student Affairs Officer
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1865 287222
Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211
Email: recruit@oii.ox.ac.uk

This programme has been made possible through funding by the media policy portfolio in the Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program of the Ford Foundation.

This Call for Applications is also available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/cspp/

ps: Global South countries list (*.doc)

Geert Lovink on Weizenbaum and the Society of the Query

2007-08-23T12:20:00.000+01:00

i am posting here commentary/book review by Geert Lovink sent to the nettime-l list today. The book is
Joseph Weizenbaum mit Gunna Wendt, Wo sind sie, die Inseln der Vernunft
im Cyberstrom, Auswege aus der programmierten Gesellschaft, Herder
Verlag, Freiburg, 2006.

the translated title of which can be said to be (Lovink´s translation:
“Where are they, the islands of reason
in the cyber stream? Ways out of the programmed society.”

some of the more key phrases that struck a chord for me were (and their compilation suggests some kind of article summary):
A spectre haunts the world's intellectual elites: information
overload...

Not only are
popular noise levels up to unbearable levels, the chatter has entered
the domain of science and philosophy itself--thanks to the indifferent
Google. Search engines rank according to popularity, not Truth...

I do not believe that it is up to any professor or editor to decide
for us what is, and what is not nonsense. I would much rather like to
further revolutionize search tools and increase the general level of
media literacy....

Let’s forget Weizenbaum’s info
anxiety. What makes this interview book an interesting read is his
insistence on the art of asking the right question....

What we need instead of Google and Wikipedia, is the
“capacity to scrutinize and think critically.”...

For the time being we remain obsessed with
the increase in quality of the answer to our queries—and not with the
underlying problem, namely the poor quality of our education and the
diminishing ability to think in a critical way....

Every information, any object or experience has to be at hand
instantaneous. Serendipity requires a lot of time. If we can no longer
stumble into islands of reason through our inquiries, we may as well
have to build them. By definition these island will be artificial,
and, most likely, digital in nature.

---
Now, let me comment on Lovink´s piece.

I think it is that we start to face an information overload situation, in a professional context even. And this is in an environment where we have not yet even realised the/this full Open Access dream. The question of info overload then has done turns in my mind in recent times, since yes, it is a matter which needs addressing. To phrase it in the latter way does not mean that there aren´t good people doing good work on info retrieval. (See for instance the wonderful Photosynth demo http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129 which, when thought of in and projected into the context of scholarly communication, makes you feel glad to have been born in these times (smile)). But think, and here is where I concur with Lovink, it is that people need to have/develop the skills to discern the level of quality of the work that is before them. Humans are innately adaptable are they not? What I disagree on is this either/or scenario suggested by Lovink when he says:

What we need instead of Google and Wikipedia, is the
“capacity to scrutinize and think critically.”...

It´s not a matter of "instead". Rather, it is a case of _because_ we have these kinds of tools (of which Google and Wikip are mere current instances; there will be others), that we need the “capacity to scrutinize and think critically.”

Then, as for the conclusion, I do wonder. Can it be that these spaces (islands) will be digital. If on the one hand, the piece calls for greater intellectual effort and discernment (things that happen in the human brain), then why can those spaces for serendipity not be constituted (also) of areas of mind, and not just be envisioned as some digital realm.

Think of it this way. Serendipity always (and I speak empirically) is a private event occurring between you and the information object, and the question which arises is where exactly is the locus of the serendipitous action (in among the bookstacks, say, or, while reading a digi article). what we tend to think is that the environment (physical or digital), shapes the experience and is therefore its locus. but isn´t it rather, that the environment are mere trappings, and the locus of the serendipitous event is the private space in there in your mind where "things come together"? so, isn´t the islands of reason still, essentially, in the mind?

okay, so what if we need to consider communal spaces, and some kind of group-think (not meant in its perjorative sense) scenario. well, then, i don´t know as yet :-)

---
The entire piece:

-------- Mensaje original --------
Asunto: Weizenbaum and the Society of the Query
Fecha: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:25:10 +0200
De: Geert Lovink
Responder a: Geert Lovink
Para: nettime-l@kein.org

Weizenbaum and the Society of the Query
By Geert Lovink

A spectre haunts the world's intellectual elites: information
overload. Ordinary people have hijacked strategic resources and
are clogging up once carefully policed media channels. Before the
Internet, the mandarin classes were able to strictly separate 'idle
talk' from 'knowledge. With the rise of Internet search engines it is
no longer possible to easily distinguish between patrician insights
and plebeian gossip. The distinction between high and low, and the
occasional mix during Carnival, are from all times and should not
greatly worry us. What is causing alarm is another issue. Not only are
popular noise levels up to unbearable levels, the chatter has entered
the domain of science and philosophy itself--thanks to the indifferent
Google. Search engines rank according to popularity, not Truth.

What today's administrators of noble simplicity and quiet grandeur
can't express, we should say for them: there is a growing discontent
in the search algorithms. The scientific establishment has lost
control over one of its key research projects, computer science
and the enlightened citizens and statesmen have so far not found
a way to communicate their concerns to those in charge (read:
the Google board). One possible way out could be to overcome to
positively redefine Heidegger's 'Gerede' as 'being of everyday
Dasein's understanding and interpreting'. Are Internet users cut off
from a a primary and primordial relationship with the world? Should we
portrayal bloggers and the Web 2.0 cybermasses as 'uprooted' and cut
off from the existantial?

These questions, and more, came up while reading an of book of
interviews with MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, known from the
computer therapy program ELIZA and his 1976 book Computer Power
and Human Reason. The publication is in German. A few years ago
Weizenbaum (b. 1923) moved back to Berlin, the city where he grew up
before he and his parents escaped from Nazis. The interviews were
conducted by Munich-based journalist Gunna Wendt. A number of Amazon
reviewers complained about Wendts uncritical questions and the
polite-superficial level of her contributions. No doubt interesting
are Weizenbaums stories about his youth in Berlin, the exile to the
USA and the way he got involved in computing during the 1950s. The
book indeed reads like a summary of Weizenbaums critique of computer
science. What interested me was the way in which Weizenbaum shapes
his arguments as an informed and respected insider (the net criticism
position, so to say). The title and subtitle sound intriguing.
Translated it goes like this: Where are they, the islands of reason
in the cyber stream? Ways out of the programmed society.

Weizenbaums Internet critique is general. He avoids becoming
specificand I appreciate that attitude. His Internet remarks are
nothing new for those familiar with Weizenbaums work: Internet
is a great pile of junk, a mass medium that up to 95% consists of
nonsense, much like the medium television, in which direction the
Web is inevitably developing. The so-called information revolution
has flipped into a flood of disinformation. The reason for this is
the absence of an editor or editorial principle. Why this crucial
media principle was not built-in by the first generations of computer
programmers, of which Weizenbaum was a prominent member, the book
fails to address.

On a number of occasions I have formulated a critique of such media
ecology, Hubert Dreyfus On the Internet (2001) being one of them.
I do not believe that it is up to any professor or editor to decide
for us what is, and what is not nonsense. I would much rather like to
further revolutionize search tools and increase the general level of
media literacy. If we walk into a book store or library our culture
has taught us how to browse through the thousands of titles. Instead
of complaining to the librarian that they carry too many books, we
call in assistance, or find the way ourselves. Weizenbaum would
like us to distrust what we see on our screens, be it television or
Internet. Who is going to tell what to trust, what is the truth and
what not, Weizenbaum doesnt mention. Lets forget Weizenbaums info
anxiety. What makes this interview book an interesting read is his
insistence on the art of asking the right question. Weizenbaum warns
for an uncritical use of the word information. The signals inside
the computer are not information. They are not more than signals.
There is only one way to turn signals into information, through
interpretation. For this we depend on the labour of the human brain.
The problem of the Internet, so Weizenbaum, is that it invites us
to see it as a Delphi oracle. To all our questions and problems,
the Internet will provide you the answer. But the Internet is not a
vending machine in which you throw a coin and then get what you want.
First of all there are plenty of obstacles before one can even pose a
question, like class, race and gender. Key is that you need to have
a proper education in order to formulate the right query. Its all
about how one gets to pose the right question. Weizenbaum: It doesnt
mean much that everyone can publish on the Net. Random publishing is
as useless as random fishing. In this context Weizenbaum makes the
comparison between Internet and now vanished CB radio. Communication
alone will not lead to useful and sustainable knowledge.

Weizenbaum relates the uncontested belief in (search engine) queries
to the rise of the problem discourse. Computers were introduced
as general problem solvers and a solution for everything. People
were invited to delegate their lives to the computer. We have a
problem, so Weizenbaum, and the problem requires an answer. But
personal and social tensions cannot be resolved through by declaring
them a problem. What we need instead of Google and Wikipedia, is the
capacity to scrutinize and think critically. Weizenbaum explains
this with the difference between hearing and listening. For a critical
understanding we first have to sit down and listen. Then we also need
to read, not just decipher, and learn to interpret and understand.

As were all aware, the so-called Web 3.0 is going to be the
technocratic answer to Weizenbaums criticism. Instead of Googles
algorithms that are based on keywords and an output based on ranking,
soon we will be able to ask questions to the next generation of
natural language search engines such as Powerset. However, we can
already guess that these computational linguists will not question the
problem-answering approach and will be wary to act as professional
expert who will decide what is and whats not crap on the Internet.
The same counts for the semantic Web school and similar artificial
intelligence technologies. Ever since the rise of search engines in
the 1990s we seem to be stuck in the Society of the Query, which,
as Weizenbaum indicates, isnt that much different from Debords
Society of the Spectacle. The complete reannotation of the worlds
information isnt going to solve the inevitable issue, also raised by
Andrew Keen in his Cult of the Amateur, about the future status of
the professional expert. For the time being we remain obsessed with
the increase in quality of the answer to our queriesand not with the
underlying problem, namely the poor quality of our education and the
diminishing ability to think in a critical way. I am skeptical if
next generations will discover Weizenbaums islands of reasons .
The culture of time is simply not there to stroll around , like a
flaneur. Every information, any object or experience has to be at hand
instantaneous. Serendipity requires a lot of time. If we can no longer
stumble into islands of reason through our inquiries, we may as well
have to build them. By definition these island will be artificial,
and, most likely, digital in nature.

--

Joseph Weizenbaum mit Gunna Wendt, Wo sind sie, die Inseln der Vernunft
im Cyberstrom, Auswege aus der programmierten Gesellschaft, Herder
Verlag, Freiburg, 2006.

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OII Call for Applications from Civil Society Practitioners in the global South

2007-07-23T16:30:00.000+01:00

Oxford Internet Institute - Civil Society Practitioners Programme

Invitation to apply

The Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) invites applications from the global South to fill two places in its Civil Society Practitioners Programme.

This visitor programme is intended for Civil Society Practitioners of distinction or outstanding promise who wish to visit the Institute for a period of six weeks between February and December 2008, to undertake research concerning the social impact of the Internet and related ICTs. Visitors are expected to reside in Oxford during their stay, and to participate fully in the intellectual life of the Institute. The successful applicants will receive:

* A subsistence allowance of 3800 GBP (7500 USD) to cover research expenses and living costs during their stay in Oxford
* A travel grant of up to 1000 GBP (2000 USD) for travel to and from the UK

Applications will ideally be submitted by Civil Society Practitioners in or from the global South, active in the areas of freedom of expression, media reform, media justice, and communications and information policy in the globalized context of the Internet.

How to apply

For details on how to apply, please download:
Information for Applicants (PDF, 45kb) at http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/CSPP_Application_Information.pdf

You may also request to have this information emailed to you in plain text form. The deadline for completed applications to reach the OII Academic and Student Affairs Officer (by post or email: contact details below) is 26 September 2007. Please note that incomplete applications cannot be considered.

Final notification of an award will occur in November 2007. Successful candidates will be expected to take up their six week residency in Oxford at any time between February and December 2008.

Contact
Laura Taylor
Academic and Student Affairs Officer
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1865 287222
Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211
Email: recruit@oii.ox.ac.uk

This programme has been made possible through funding by the Ford Foundation´s Media, Arts and Culture unit.

This Call for Applications is also available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/cspp/

mindless movie-watching (Die Hard 4.0)

2007-07-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

last night i was in the mood for doing s.thing mindless, so i went to the movies to watch Die Hard 4.0. i´d last seen Die Hard 1, and maybe 2, but never 3, so it seemed like the least likely option to go watch vis-à-vis my movie tastes, but i went after seeing the movie plot summary which rang: "Bruce Willis returns as John McClane for the fourth Die Hard movie. This time he tackles internet terrorists threatening to take down the entire American computer and technological structure (sic)." I thought, ok, let´s see how they tell thát tale.

if you want to know the plot summary, see the (very detailed, this-must-be-a-twelve-year-old-summing-up synopsis) over at IMDB. if you plan on seeing the movie, don´t read the synopsis...

ok. let it be noted that i had not seen one of these gratuitously violent movies in quite some time. so, there i sat, and in one of the very early scenes, one of the bad guys smashes the car window in order to grab Willis. thing is, you don´t see it coming. i didn´t. so, i jumped in my seat. which then had the effect of the guy in the seat next to me also jumping. at which point i burst out laughing! that was so ridiculous. jajaja.

ok. the movie itself. it was good as sheer entertainment. interestingly, it is based on a piece called "A Farewell to Arms" by John Carlin (see it in Wired, May 1997), but with Carlin´s idea updated for a post 9/11 world. the movie is credible in the sense that the disruptive events described seem all plausible (although some members of the audience, upon exiting, commented that the movie made no sense...). thing is, the events weren´t high-level in a technological sense at all, since that would have made for a difficult-to-grasp movie.

the tech destruction scenario referred to is called a "fire sale" in the movie. here from wikipedia:
Use as plot device
The term "fire sale" is used in the 2007 movie Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0 in EU) to describe a hypothetical attack by computer hackers on vital networks of the United States government, infrastructure, and economy. Use of the term is explained with a reference to a typical fire sale: "everything must go." Any computer-operated system will be a target for such an attack, although the movie focused on four primary objectives: disrupting transportation, stealing and destroying financial records, disabling all public utilities, and creating fear with a PSYOP media campaign. This theoretical process drives the plot of the movie, threatening to bring the United States of America to its knees through widespread chaos and fear.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sale"

some things that came to mind: so how come the baddies are always European/Continentals? in Die Hard 4.0 the bad guy´s henchmen are all French-speaking, and in the first movie the bad guys were all German. how come the techies are always weird marginal i-don´t-go-outside types? interesting that the suggestion is that the bad guy is privy to all this system information because he is a disgruntled ex-employee rather than that he was some random outsider who was able to find his way into the systems.

one grows tired

2007-07-13T15:25:00.000+01:00

this "tiredness theme" has two aspects. the first is prompted by a recent communication with a colleague (i mean this in a scholarly sense, i.e. we´ve never worked together as such) in South Africa, and then also my happening to meet a fellow South African last night, and the most pleasant conversation that ensued.
for some time now, and even before i´d left South Africa back in October 2005, i felt frustrated, for instance in terms of Open Access, since i knew we had the capacity to do things there, but that there was a lack of will within many institutions. but not taking OA-activity merely as metric, on all kinds of levels I feel that we (in SA) have so much that we can do; are capable of doing, towards improving the quality of living, education, etc. but that we were still so wrapped up in the joys of the post-apartheid era that we forgot that "the show must go on". cliché. i know. but so there we were, basking in the reflected glow of Nelson Mandela, whilst busy patting ourselves on the back for our 1994 achievement. of course, who can dispute that the change was not something amazing (if i called it a miracle (which is what ppl often say) that would somehow admit that such things cannot happen on the African continent. well, as Dr Phil likes to say: past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, and yep, one cannot deny that African countries do not have a good track-record when it comes to political transitions).

but we need to be humble again, and get beyond the rhetoric of believing how great we are based on an achievement which had its crowning glory ca. 1994 to 2000. we need get over this notion of our having been the poster-child for a non-violent transition in Africa. the glory of that has long slipped away. we need to prove ourselves, again, and constantly, in all kinds of spheres, such as, innovation (see previous post) for sure, there are lots of great people working very hard, and doing great things in small and big ways. but, it´s about time that we stop patting ourselves on the back: the party is over (it ended, about seven years ago), the band has stopped playing, and we need to get back to work.

---
another thing which bears mentioning vis-à-vis tiredness is, when listening to the Professor of Poetry here at the uni at the Encaenia (awarding of honorary degrees here) i couldn´t help but think how tired he had sounded. now, i had no idea who the person was, so their reputation did not proceed them. i just had that particular performance by which to judge. and i thought then: jeez, if i had this guy as lit prof it would turn me away from the subject. he read a poem. the theme of the thing seemed apt enough. and yet, he read the poem, as if too-casually reading an article from the evening newspaper: with not a lot of effort, which amounted to a rather underwhelming poetry experience. was he ill? were the acoustics in the venue not suited to the timbre of his voice? i dunno. but what a missed opportunity for poetry that was. my experience of it: i just felt really sad.

Europaeum Review (latest)

2007-07-08T20:09:00.000+01:00

Europaeum Review
The next Europaeum Review on The Medival (sic) Roots of Europe has been published this month, examining in part the relationship of the EU and Empire (see editorial). Articles include Disunion: the true hallmark of the history of Europe?, by Professor Jean-Philippe Genet, Professor of Medieval History, University of Paris I-Sorbonne; Is Europe turning into a neo-medieval Empire? by Professor Jan Zielonka, Professor of European Politics and Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at the European Studies Centre, Oxford; What is the story for our European Project? Professor Timothy Garton Ash, Honorary Chair of the European Studies Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford; and Can we save the European adventure? by Dr Curt Gasteyger, Director, Association for the Promotion and Study of International Security, and Honorary Professor, HEI, Geneva.

comment: the above is more a sort of newsflash. for those unfamiliar with the Europaeum, here a brief extract from their "Vision" page:

As the pace of European integration accelerates, decision-makers, opinion-formers, politicians and citizens in European countries increasingly need to 'think European', to transcend national perspectives and empathise with a European mix of national and international cultures.
To meet that challenge, 10 leading European university institutions have jointly set up an association designed to serve as an 'international university without walls', in which future scholars and leaders of our new Europe will have an opportunity to share common learning and confront common concerns together, from a formative age and throughout their active lives.
The members:
University of Oxford
Universiteit Leiden
Universitá di Bologna
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
Univerzita Karlova V Praze
Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Helsingin Yliopisto, Helsinki
Jagiellonian University, Krakow

"stereotype of Africa as non-competitive continent is simply not true

2007-07-04T17:20:00.000+01:00

the below story landed in my mailbox. i want to highlight particularly:

"The stereotype of Africa as a non-competitive continent is simply not true," said John Page, chief economist for Africa at the World Bank. But across the continent, this potential is stymied by failures to make legal frameworks and trading processes less onerous for business, he added.

the full story below:

Industry’s bottom line on African innovation

R&D investment will come when capacity is there, say leaders

Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia have the best innovation climates in Africa, say business leaders. But despite a steady upward trend in economic growth, the continent still does not cut the mustard to attract significant R&D investment from industry.

Data to this effect comes from a survey published at the World Economic Forum “Davos for Africa” meeting in Cape Town from 13 to 15 June. It captures the perceptions of leading business executives from a cross-section of firms operating in African countries.

Of the 29 countries surveyed, Tunisia receives the most consistently high rating for its innovation capacity. It is the only country to register in the top three in all nine categories pertaining to science and technology [see table via link to PDF below]. It also gets the top overall score.

Tunisia’s hegemony might come as a surprise, since South Africa holds the number one spot in more categories. But the Southern giant is let down by poor quality science education and a shortfall of scientists. This fate is shared by Kenya, although the second runner up also falls short on IP protection.

A North-South divide can also be discerned in the data, which forms part of the Forum’s African Competitiveness Report 2007. Northern Africa chalks up the highest scores in categories related to skills and human resources, while Sub-Saharan Africa does well on research quality and technology transfer.

“Africa is doing well in basic areas of competitiveness but needs to focus more on technological readiness and market efficiency to really jump-start competitiveness,” said Jennifer Blanke, senior economist with the World Economic Forum and one of the authors of the competitiveness report.

The report compares Africa’s four largest economies—South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt—to the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, suggesting the “Sane” countries have the potential to be the drivers of African economic growth. As a result, the authors suggest, international investment in Africa should not only focus on the poorest, but also go into bolstering economies that are doing well.

“The stereotype of Africa as a non-competitive continent is simply not true,” said John Page, chief economist for Africa at the World Bank. But across the continent, this potential is stymied by failures to make legal frameworks and trading processes less onerous for business, he added.

Economic growth in Africa measured 5.5 percent in 2006 and is expected to exceed six percent in coming years. But while the continent is experiencing its highest growth rates for decades, the dream of competing with other growing economies for multinational R&D investment remains elusive.

The majority of the countries surveyed by the Forum report attain only the lowest stage of economic development, namely “factor driven”. A handful—Benin, Botswana, Libya, Namibia and Tunisia—are described as “T1-2 transition economies”, which means that they are moving between stage one and stage two, which is “efficiency driven”. Only South Africa and Mauritius manage to reach the latter, while none attain the third level: “innovation driven”.

And while a session on R&D in Cape Town heard business representatives say that “the door was obviously open” in terms of their investing in R&D in Africa, in practice the scientific and technological quality is simply lacking at this stage.

“The R&D investment will come when demonstrated capability is there,” said Kenneth Willett, vice president and managing director for Africa of computer hardware giant HP.

For more on the “Davos of Africa” click on the links below.

Other sites Table to accompany article (PDF).
On this (research-africa) site More on the “Davos of Africa” - p.2. More on the “Davos of Africa” - p.20. More on the “Davos of Africa” - p.21.

is that journal OA in some (or other) way? - see Journal Info

2007-07-04T16:45:00.000+01:00

prior to 29 June, the way to find out of a journal (publisher) was well-disposed to Open Access, you would hop along to SHERPA/RoMEO to check the publisher copyright policy and whether they favoured self-archiving or not...

another measure would have been to see whether there was an Open Access journal for your article over at DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) at Lund University.

now we have a new service from Lund University, called Journal Info.

what i like about the service is its one-stop-shop approach. where "full info" for a journal has been compiled, you can see the following info organised around three categories of "reader accessiblity", "cost", and "quality", with respective associated indicators.

(i chose one of my favourite journals: Research Policy, just to illustrate):

Research Policy

ISSN: 00487333
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
Homepage: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00487333
Subject: Science (General)
First published year: 1972

Reader accessibility
Open Access: No
Allows self-archiving of reviewed manuscript: Yes
Hybrid: No
Alternative journals with Open Access: The Journal of Philosophy, Science and Law PoS - Proceedings of Science Ingenierías Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology more alternative journals ...

Cost
Subscription price per article: $20.46
Subscription price per citation: $12.21
Profit-Status: For-Profit

Quality
Databases indexing the journal: Social Sciences Citations Index --- International Political Science Abstract --- Compendex --- ABI/Inform
Journal eigenfactor: 0.012579
Article Influence: 1.0516
FRIDA score: High
ISI impact factor: Available to Journal Citation Report subscribers

the above info is (cc) by-nc-sa

well, the copy&paste didn´t do justice to the info display over at the service itself, so have a look already(!).

i like particularly that price info is given. so that individual researchers can see the price their institutions pay for their favourite journals (info for which is usually opaque in the higher education system). further, i like that there is a listing of OA alternatives, and that one also gets an idea of the related journals in languages other than English.

see informational/promotional e-mail copied below:

----

Subject: Journal Info - information about journals with an OA-twist (http://jinfo.lub.lu.se/)

Dear All,

Lund University Libraries has, with financial support from the National Library of Sweden, put together a new tool to support researchers in their choice of journal for publication. The service, called ”Journal Info”, gives fast and simple access to journal information through a web interface, http://jinfo.lub.lu.se. The journal information is divided up in general, accessibility, cost and quality and each area is supported by a number of relevant points. You can e.g. find in which databases a journal is indexed, how much it costs for the library to subscribe and which alternative OA journals exists. A total of 18,000 journals are currently supported in the database.

The service takes its aim at the researchers themselves and includes explanations for the interested beginner. The information is compiled from a larger number of services and will continually be updated. The service is designed to be a complement to DOAJ, the Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org), which is also produced in Lund.

Welcome to test the new service. Please send comments and forward the announcement to fellow researchers and colleagues.

Best regards,
Håkan

---------
Håkan Carlsson
Biblioteksdirektionen / Head Office
Lunds universitet / Lund University Libraries
Box 134
221 00 LUND
Tel. +46 46-222 15 30
Fax + 46 46-222 36 82

access and having a voice

2007-07-03T18:41:00.000+01:00

my sitting down to blog was triggered by reading the following blogpost:

Why Geldof’s image of rotting Africa is ok by me Richard M Kavuma
http://panos.blogs.com/africavox2007/2007/06/why_geldofs_ima.html

the above post is a commentary on the (de)merits of the cover of a BILD Zeitung edited by Bob Geldoff, portraying an emaciated baby with headline: "30, 000 Menschen sterben in Afrika jeden Tag an Armut", roughly "30, 000 people die in Africa every day due to poverty". Kavuma goes on to question, then argue for, Geldof´s use of the image and (inadvertent) perpetuation of a stereotype; juxtaposing bad and good events, but letting the bad news gain the coverspot. well. i pondered in a similar vein recently when having bought the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine, guest-edited by Bono. Unlike Geldof however, Bono´s aim was to portray the more positive side of the continent, accompanied by lovely portraits by Annie Leibovitz. my wondering in boh examples incorporated thinking about "who gets to tell the story?" a Western voice or one from the global South. and this goes to my general thinking on this topic of late, browsing then shelves of local bookshops; wondering why there could not be a Tony Judt equivalent for a book on Africa.

there is always a tension between painting (or is it sticking to?) the dire picture as opposed to foregrounding the positive. and even when foregrounding the positive, that can be misconstrued somehow.

this reminds me that, and by way of example, someone had once said to me that in one of the chapters for the South African Masters degree that I did, I spoke "too highly" of Stellenbosch University; that in my writings I had come across as someone wanting to stress the superiority of the university (read for that, "superiority above other South African universities") ...that never entered my thinking i must say, simply because my mind doesn´t work like that. my very modest and good-natured aim had been altogether different, in that i was trying to highlight the positive and the long-time presence cf. absence of connectivity in South African universities. so let me explain.

in my study, in the part where i had conducted a structured record review of web sites hosted on the university´s domain (to see if they were making working papers available from departmental homepages), i had an intro which described/chronicled the general development of the "wiring up" of the university in question. in this intro, i had wanted to portray and emphasise the positive side; to indicate that universities in South Africa (not just the one under study) enjoyed connectivity from an early stage. this was some effort to counter the stereotype of a largely digitally-disconnected continent and academic populace. to counter, in effect, this notion of overall backwardness that often characterises opinion re connectivity in Africa. well. my point has always been that academics at higher education institutions in South Africa (bearing in mind that I am speaking only of South Africa here) do have connectivity, and as such, should have been, and should be, further along with self-archiving activity.

i think what we now see however is that scholars all over still display a wide reluctance to self-archive; which i find profoundly unfortunate. whenever i have gotten up to speak about Open Access, i had felt that, given an intelligent and reasonable scholar before me, that the arguments _for_ OA would prove convincing in themselves. that on the basis of thát, people would go on to share their work openly.

instead, what i see is that we get bogged down in some kind of thrust and counter-thrust; tilting at windmills and losing sight (often) of the larger issue of access. yes, doesn´t it come down to that? and access in turn facilitates having a voice. these can happen at two levels, or in two spheres that i want to particularly highlight here.

the one: there can be the need for physical access; yes, just simple hooking-up to the Internet, and thát can facilitate giving people voices, and the platform from which to highlight social or other plights. not to toot the horn of bloggers everywhere, but let´s face it, i´d rather have blogs than not have them, since it means i can gain information from channels other than big media giants.

two asides come to mind from the latter observation.

aside one: some people say that blogs are just self-indulgent fora for ppl with nothing better to do. that, their presence complicates the information landscape, and so, this complexity is held up as some argument proof for not having blogs. logically, the reasoning is flawed of course.

aside two: some people say that self-archiving, and the complexity conjured up by versioning (i.e. not knowing which version of an article is _the_ authoritative version) makes for an argument contra self-archiving. here too the reasoning is flawed.

we should rather be paying attention to how to make the landscape less complex, and find ways of navigating the landscape, rather than saying that the landscape should not, or must not change.

per chance, as i am typing this up, a mail has come in announcing one such effort to orient to the information lanscape. see "An ecological approach to repository and service interactions" wiki

the second: how about access to research literature? just because i cannot fully comprehend a piece because it is way beyond my ken, does not make my having access to the article a useless endeavour. for, the thinking that infuses an article, though unrelated to my study domain, may still prove useful. or. a mere ability to have a look-see at cutting-edge research in domains apparently unrelated to my own, can be useful too. whatever happened to serendipity? that finding of a book in a part of the library you hardly go to, except now the library can grow and not be physically constrained. it seems obvious. some would say even utopian... thing is, i just don´t get why anyone would make a sustained argument for a closed-off library. and maybe, with the thinking that one encounters in domains outside one´s own, one could add one´s voice to scholarly debates in one´s own field in a new way. (the ecology of repositories approach is but one such example. there is a neat raison d´être from the European University Institute in the reasoning given for their workshops on "Questions, Methods and Results in Social Science Research" (QMR)" when they say:

The basic principle underlying QMR is that researchers –both individually and collectively - can greatly benefit by learning what is being developed beyond the confines of their own specific research agendas. Specialization should not be a source of defensive ignorance. But being exposed to –and taking advantage of – multidisciplinary criticism requires that researchers from different disciplines get to know which questions or facts, which methods or theories, which results or open inquiries, are being addressed by colleagues from other disciplines.

to say these things seem so obvious that it nags the brain. well, i am reminded here again, in speaking of "access" and "having a voice", of my attendance of the union debate (see webcasts at the OII, and Tobias´ blogpost done during and after the event)
now, i like Tobias´post overall, but there is a slight discrepancy between reality and reporting, where he says "ok, we are well 2 hours in the debate and so far we haven’t seen any female members voicing an opinion…". when in fact it was that when the floor was opened up for Q & A, a number of women in the audience had raised their hands to speak, but they were continuously and apparently ignored (how else to explain it) by the president of the house. noticing this, i turned to Tobias and said "he´s not giving any woman the forum". then later, JZ in his argument highlighted this very same gender-differentiation aspect. and though he (JZ) had phrased things differently, saying that the Internet provided a forum for liberty, even humanity, and for a spectrum of dissenting voices, which was in stark contrast to the binary yes/no door contraption for the debating venue... (think: a double door, opens in the middle. at the end of the evening, a brass pole is placed vertically, down the middle, and people indicate their vote of for or against the motion, by exiting on the left or right).

further, i would add that,unlike in the physical space of the Oxford Union debate hall, where women that evening had not been given the forum to speak, the Internet, in such circumstances, could facilitate the raising of the voice of those who were previously made to be silent. and that overall, the Internet as such was a means for greater civic participation.

i feel then that a similar argument is to be made for opening up access to research. that those previously made to be silent (researchers who work outside of the global (Western, mainly developed world) scientific agenda) can have a voice and a platform from which to give prominence to their works. but even those "in the centre" can also expose their works beyond some incestuous inner circle.

we know, and experience shows; that the current-and-inherited scientific publication and dissemination system does not facilitate much if any of the latter.

to my dear sweet Yuki and Shasta

2007-06-24T09:33:00.000+01:00

back in 1994 and 1995 two dogs came into my life. Shasta, a Rottweiler, i went to seek out at the SPCA. he stole my heart from the first moment we´d met. after doing all the "adoption" paperwork, i took him home 9 August 1994. he was one of those dogs with a big heart, fierce-looking but as mild as anything. he craved affection but always leant in the opposite direction when you hugged him, as if some proof of independence. we used to have staring-competitions from time to time. i always won. he would blink first :-)
and unlike my other dogs, i never kissed him on the head, rather on the side of his cheek. he´d snap otherwise.
he died this morning 24 June of old age.

almost 24 hours earlier my second-oldest dog, Yuki, was put to sleep. he had a tumour, discovered earlier this week. Yuki was like a miniature german shepherd: same fluffy thick coat and tail, but with short legs. we had named them both after two neighbouring Amerindian tribes. Yuki was closer to me cf. Shasta. we spent far more time together. in one anothers´ company. sometimes i thought he knew me better than i knew myself :-)
we "talked" in Spanish; he would come to sit with me in my sad moments; and spent a lot of time by my side as i wrote my masters thesis back in SA in 2004/early-2005. the last time i saw him was in april 2006. he was laying on the bed. always when i called him he would come to me quickly. that time however he just lay there, looking at me "de reojo". he wasn´t ill then. no. but he knew i was leaving again. he saw me packing my suitcase. so, noticing that, he wasn´t too interested in coming closer. but i insisted, feigning insult, saying "Yuki? Dáme un beso!" (Yuki, give me a kiss). he got up, looking at once shy and reluctant the way a teenage boy might when his mother tries to kiss him in front of the school gate. and i kissed him on the forehead, the way i always had.

so, RIP

Yuki 20 March 1995 - 23 June 2007
Shasta 9 August 1994 - 24 June 2007

songs

2007-06-24T00:55:00.000+01:00

do you remember the Hallelujah sung in the movie Shrek 2, where Shrek´s sitting at the bar feeling defeated? references to Leonard Cohen have woven themselves through these postings from time to time. apparently, reading an interview with him the other day, it said that it had taken him five years in which to write the song. and further, there are a number of versions. not just versions based on interpretations through the years by various artists, but also lyrically, at the level of the verses.

so then,
below two of my most-listened-to in past weeks; well, see:

Frou Frou - Let Go

lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/froufrou/letgo.html

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgcIpKL86Jk

drink up baby down
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
'Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps
You bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like

[Chorus:]
So, let go,let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, l-let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives
And then it rises with the fall
So hand me that remote
Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow?
Such boundless pleasure
We've no time for later
Now you can't await
your own arrival
you've twenty seconds to comply

[Chorus:]
So, let go, so let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

[Background sounds]

[Chorus:]
So, let go, so let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

In the breakdown
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
The breakdown

So amazing here
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

---------------------

Terra Naomi - Flesh for Bones

on myspace:

lyrics: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Terra-Naomi/Flesh-For-Bones.html
vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWqhqbbyHsc
myspace: http://www.myspace.com/terranaomi

I’m sitting here frozen in this bed I made
Considering the weight of the bricks I laid now that I’m through
One by one sealed every crack that I could slip between to find my way back
Find my way back home to you

And I’m burning all my bridges
with these matches I light
To illuminate my path to what is right
And even if it’s true what they say
that you can’t go back home
once you’ve cast it away
I would still have left tonight

You know baby I would be with you if I could
To trade my flesh for your bones
I would, I would, I would, I would, I would…

I carry with me on my way
All the ghosts of all the love
that I let slip away
The heavy weight of promises made
That if I could exonerate
I might just lift off today

And I’m burning all my bridges
with these matches I light
To illuminate my path to what is right
And even if it’s true what they say
that you can’t go back home
once you’ve cast it away
I would still have left tonight

You know baby I would be with you if I could
To trade my flesh for your bones
I would, I would, I would, I would, I would…

I chased your memory from my mind
But every song I write is just a wish to find you, near or far
Through all the tears and all the time
That I been running blind
I still ain’t got to where you are

And I’m burning all my bridges
with these matches I light
To illuminate my path to what is right
And even if it’s true what they say
that you can’t go back home
once you’ve cast it away
I would still have left tonight

You know baby I would be with you if I could
To trade my flesh for your bones
I would, I would, I would, I would, I would…

the question of human migration

2007-06-07T20:27:00.000+01:00

along with my latent interest in how cities develop, and more specifically megacities or megalopolises (i.e. any city in excess of 8 million people), and of how these will characterise many developing countries in future. alongside this rural to urban migration, i am also keenly aware of human migration patterns across (nation state) borders. i know. i re-read what i´ve just written and it seems rather clinical. probably, your basic question is one of: but is she pro or contra?. well, i think that it is natural for human beings to seek a better life, and that they will do so, if their means or opportunities allow. and further, i do think that there needs to be creative well-considered approaches to dealing with human migration. approaches that rest on humanitarian grounds; humanitarian approaches that go beyond extending a helping hand only when people are seeking asylum or refuge due to internal country conflicts. meaning, that humanitarian values should also infuse approaches to dealing with clandestine immigration. and this goes even further than just being nice to people while they await repatriation. i am not an expert on this topic, but what does strike me are two things:
1) how immigration as a political question, more particularly in political campaigns, gains much attention
2) how there has to be better ways, somehow, of dealing with human migration. "better ways" not to stem the tide, but better ways prefaced by saying "maybe repatriating people, in a way similar to trying to control the flow of an open tap, is not the best use of our economic (and other) resources"

the flow of human beings has always been in my consciousness. when growing up in South Africa, with the pass laws (people needed papers to migrate to the city). well, to be precise, if your ethnicity were black you were restricted. you needed permission. so too, the matter of requesting a visa to enter a country is a process that has always been in my consciousness. i "marvel" at how countries deal with this, with regards to, who is allowed, who exempted, etc. when living in spain, this life-long consciousness, was brought strongly to the fore.

my having lived in spain, once for a month back in july 2000, and for a year back in 2005/2006, something which was very prevalent in the papers was the rate of, illegal, ostensibly economic migration, into spain. of course, people do arrive and enter illegally at the airports, but the daily media image in spain of illegal migration is that of boat-loads of people from Africa (mostly Central-, and Northern-) arriving on southern Spanish shores. people arrive in groups of 50 to 100 or 200, per boat. to give an idea, some two weeks ago or so, nearly 1,200 persons arrived within 5 days. then (july 2000) and now (every other day, if not daily) there are newspaper reports in the spanish papers of boats full of persons arriving on the spanish southern coast. these boats, referred to as "pateras" (which my spanish dictionary defines as "embarcación elemental de quilla plana y poco calado", that is, a small boat with a flat keel . to my mind i always think of olden-time wooden life-boats as found in the heyday of luxury cruise ships like the cunard). but to not digress too much, the word, apart from describing a boat, has metamorphosed into the umbrella term for anyone who arrives in spain illegally by boat (even if the boat is of bigger, better construction). another term frequently used in spain is "los sin papeles" or "indocumentados", literally, "those without papers" or "the undocumented".

with the above as background, i last week 30 May attended a talk by Steve Cohen given at Trinity College. His talk was titled "No One is Illegal -- issues of immigration control", and he was billed as:

Steve Cohen has been an immigration lawyer for over 25 years and is former Co-ordinator of the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. He studied law at Oxford and Birmingham and has practised as a barrister. The author of many academic, professional and political articles, he has been actively involved in campaigns against deportation and denial of entry. He is the author of No-One is Illegal: Immigration Control and Asylum, Deportation is Freedom: The Orwellian World of Immigration Controls, Immigration Controls, the Family and the Welfare State: A Handbook of Theory, Politics and Practice, and a contributor to Social Work, Immigration and Asylum: Debates, Dilemmas and Ethical Issues for Social Work and Social Care.

The above bio from http://www.word-power.co.uk/catalogue/1843102943

just an interjection: usually illegal migration can be stigmatised, but note that migration, even if legal, can be stigmatised. think for instance, notions of flows of people from newly-accessing European Union countries. one has heard concerns expressed about overflows of people upon accession of countries to the EU, for instance. the "fall guy" always changes, but there is always a "fall guy". to continue...

i will attempt to provide here a summary of the main points from Cohen´s talk:

he reflected on how the approach to immigration from the legal practice perspective, had changed during the past century, using the UK as case. and of how those changes which háve occurred reflect the convergence of law and politics. that ca. the 1970s "immigration control" was merely an administrative process and system, and was not really seen as a judicial process. that every effort was made back then, to make it (immigration) appear to be depoliticised. he noted that within the past 12 months there had been a "sanctification of the politics of immigration". in saying this, he meant to indicate that immigration as a question had reached a point where discourse went unquestioned. that people spoke about "illegals" and "aliens" (stigmatised loaded terms, much like "patera" or "sinpapel") as if it were entirely natural to be referring to people in such a manner. that the categories went as accepted and unquestioned. further, that, from a legal scholar view, immigration law was the only branch of law where a person could, by virtue of being alive, be "illegal", that in all other branches of law, only acts or behaviours could be termed to be illegal. that now, the legitimacy of your very existence, by the unquestioning adoption and use of the term "illegal" as a noun, was brought into question.

another interjection from me: well, you could say that this word usage is a philosophical question; or that it is merely a linguistic evolution, because the term is used as shorthand to refer to the illegal act of entering a country without permission, etc. if you tilted at those windmills, i would say that you are missing the point somehow. for at issue is the notion of making a person feel excluded from (a) society, and as of having no rights that nation states usually confer to its citizens. it is someone existing in the shadows, or made to feel, even if legitimately relocated, that he/she is a shadow, peripheral, or marginal and marginalised figure. you could say that the latter is part of the grander process of "othering". the "them" and "us" syndrome. very well, it could be, but that is no justification for its acceptance.

back to Cohen: there has been a sharp increase in the number of UK laws passed in recent years, with no consolidation of these. a timeline: 1905 (first UK Immigration Act), 1914, 1919, 1962, ?, 1968, 1971, 1988, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007. he added that no other area of law has gone through this kind of evolutionary track. another change seen in recent times (post 1970s) has been the "coming into the public sphere" of immigration. that there has been an overt turn to a legalistic
approach, and an obvious politicization. that the danger of the adoption of loaded terminology was that they were used as common-sensical terms, serving then as basis for their usage not being questioned.

Cohen elaborated: the term "illegal" had come to denote criminalization of a human being, without an explicit charge, trial, nor conviction. he drew the parallel to the use of the term "unperson" in Orwell´s 1984, and that detention centres were, in effect, centres filled with "unpersons", and that many people were not ready to question such thinking.

some interesting "asides" from Cohen: apparently, the development of "judicial review" as a legal process, had developed on deportation issues. that William Morris (he of the Arts & Crafts movement) had been involved in anti-immigration campaigns as part of his participation in the UK Socialist League.

Cohen cautioned against the "sanctification of law"; that sanctification happens through making something appear normal; where people start to think that obeying orders is a natural thing to do. Cohen mentioned the Wannsee Conference where the extermination of Jews had been discussed in a very civilised manner over cocktails, as if this were an entirely "natural" thing to do, and to discuss.

Cohen´s Wannsee reference made me think again of Hannah Arendt, and her writings on the banality of evil. from the linked-to wikipedia entry on Arendt, I quote:

In her reporting of the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker, which evolved into the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, she coined the phrase "the banality of evil." She raised the question whether evil is radical or simply a function of banality - the tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without critically thinking about the results of their action or inaction. This work created a great deal of controversy and animosity toward Arendt in the Jewish community.

to conclude the summary of Steve Cohen´s talk, his Oxonian take-home message was that people had to question day-to-day uses of terms, and to also question their education on an almost daily basis; to not take things as "given", or "natural" or "common-sensical".

before i go, for interest, here´s also a link to Oxford´s Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS).

angel with a bushy ponytail

2007-05-27T20:55:00.000+01:00

the write-up yesterday in the El País, Babelia supplement about a Joseph Beuys exhibition in Spain, reminded me of this angel (in the pic, 2 inch / 5cm high -- you wouldn´t say from the pic) i´d bought in Helsinki. when there, browsing, seeing all kinds of stuff made from raw materials: felt, wood, natural fibres, i thought "i feel that i am in joseph beuys country". which, is of course, erroneous, since he was German. but somehow it just all made sense, those materials, there in Finland.
so, then i was reminded of the first time i saw some of Joseph Beuys´ works in the Tate (Modern), and of how that felt seeing it all up close, after having seen his works in books through the years. it was amazing the complex feelings that these works, made from simple materials, generated.

stargazing

2007-05-19T15:03:00.000+01:00

yesterday was a bit of an odd day. firstly, i swear i saw someone that i know. i was in london. upon first seeing this person there was that momentary recognition (i thought), but then, since the person (on the face of it) looked different appearance-wise, i said to myself "how could it be him. it´s impossible". so, i didn´t think about it again. there was another event, but i won´t elaborate on that now.

then, as i walk to marble arch to take the bus back to oxf, i swear i saw ashley judd. yes. but i am not one to intrude when i see well-known people. i don´t rush up and say "aren´t you so-and-so?". after all, if they are out in public just to be out shopping say, then i don´t think it´s okay for me to run over and intrude on what is a private moment/space (even if they are out in public).

later that evening i went to my first oxford union debate. there i saw peter gabriel. no doubt that it was him. not really surprising to see him there either. and then when he spoke, his unmistakable voice confirmed what i had already known (i.e. that it was him). after the debate i´d wondered for a moment or so whether i should go over to him and say something. i didn´t want to go into gush-gush-you´re-such-a-wonderful-artist kind of thing. no.

it is that upon the death-in-detention of one of the (if not _the_) foremost black South African intellectuals, Steve Biko, in 1977, Peter Gabriel wrote a song about and dedicated to Biko, titled "Biko". i was way too young to have actual meaningful political memory of 1977, but i remember there was a wall over a canal in my neighbourhood scrawled with Biko´s name on it. it stayed there all through my childhood, which was surprising since the police station was not so far away, and i would have thought that they (the authorities) would have white-washed the graffiti, but they didn´t. Gabriel´s "Biko" song had been banned in South Africa throughout the apartheid era. eventually it was unbanned, and then some years ago during the first 46664 AIDS benefit concert (hosted by Nelson Mandela) in Green Point, Cape Town, i remember it as a great moment when Peter Gabriel came on stage to perform "Biko" _in_ South Africa. i remember thinking then, proudly, "wow, look how far we´ve come".
i do have a copy of the song. i´d bought the CD last year when in Madrid.

well, i wanted to thank Peter Gabriel somehow, for his writing the song, etc. but in the end, no he aprovechado del momento justo para hacerlo.
:-\

i will write later about the oxford debate, and also on the conference i had attended in london all day, titled "the rule of law and post-conflict states"
what was striking to me was the stark contrast between the seriousness of the engagement in the day´s conference, versus the near-ridicularization of the politics of oppression in the evening´s event. the reasons for which i will explain later.

for now, here´s the blurb from the conference site:

“The Institute’s Annual Conference in 2007 will focus upon a single theme: the International Legal Issues Raised for Societies in Post–Conflict Situations.

The application of the international rule of law in the aftermath of civil and international conflicts – while vitally important in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierre Leone, East Timor, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – is by no means clear. Speakers will consider the obligations of occupying powers, economic reconstruction and trade, access of foreign investors to natural resource exploitation, war crimes trials, the relationship between human rights and the 1949 Geneva ‘Red Cross’ Conventions and the role of non state actors, particularly the United Nations, World Bank and the EU. A core question is whether treaty-based and customary international law provides an adequate response to the contemporary problems faced by States post–conflict where the objectives of key players may range from conserving prior rights to regime change.”

something good

2007-05-18T05:45:00.000+01:00

the other evening i watched "the sound of music". saw it last when i was very small, but i remember it well. here, the lyrics of one of the songs i did not remember came from that movie.

Maria and the Captain - Something Good Lyrics
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/s/
thesoundofmusiclyrics/somethinggoodlyrics.html

[Maria:]
Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somwhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth

For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

[Captain:]
For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should

[Maria:]
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

[Maria and the Captain:]
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could

[Maria:]
So somewhere in my youth
[Captain:]
Or childhood
[Maria:]
I must have done something . . .
[Maria and the Captain:]
Something good

the weather doesn´t get better?

2007-05-15T16:55:00.000+01:00

here i am, sitting in not-so-sunny England. in fact, it is very rainy. very. i am sitting at the OII looking out onto St. Giles and there has been some thunder and a cloudburst. a friend this afternoon sent me a mail, which he said was a german joke, & wrang:

Q: how do you tell the difference between summer and winter in England?
A: the rain´s warmer in summer

como se nota en UK la diferencia entre verano y invierno¿? Pues fácil en verano la lluvia es mas calido que en el invierno.

jeez. it´s raining more now. a complete downpour. if this continues i might have to swim home...

---
this afternoon i was sitting thinking about the things that can annoy. that are almost inexplicable, but are those things which make your hair stand on end.
e.g. you see someone with a mullet and have the irresistible urge to grab a pair of scissors and get rid of the offending pseudo-ponytail.
ok. that´s one example. another for me would be food grease underneath plates _after_ they´ve been washed. the reason why i mention this is that this afternoon one of these phenomena confronted me (and different from the above) i.e. someone was wearing shoes but they still had the huge visible price stickers on the bottom. there´s something about that, that just makes my skin crawl. i guess that´s weird(?). but hey.

Open Research: Third London Conference on Opening Access to Research Publications

2007-05-15T12:12:00.000+01:00

Date: Monday 11 June 2007, 13.00 - 16.30
Venue: Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London
Who: Academic and research active staff
Cost: free

The conference will address a range of themes relating to Open Access, including perspectives from researchers, publishers and funders.

Confirmed speakers and conference topics include:
Dr Alma Swan, Director, Key Perspectives, UK (abstract) (biography) The present Open Access landscape and what might be over the horizon
Dr David Prosser, Director, SPARC Europe, UK (abstract) (biography) Repositories and research publications: policies and politics (working title TBC)
Frank Scholze, Stuttgart University, Germany (abstract) (biography) Metrics in an Open Access environment: an infrastructure for collecting and aggregating usage data
Dr Astrid Wissenburg, Director of Information and Communication, Economic and Social Research Council, UK (abstract) (biography) RCUK position on scholarly publishing
Nick Evans, Chief Operating Officer, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)(abstract) (biography) Institutional Repositories and Open Access - a threat to society publishers or an opportunity?

The Conference will be chaired by Professor Nicholas Mann, Dean of the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
There will also be an opportunity for discussion and to put questions before the panel of speakers.
Lunch will be provided from 1pm, with the conference starting at 1.50pm.
Booking: [click here to reserve a place]

waiting to exhale?

2007-05-14T17:34:00.000+01:00

remember that movie? yeah.

well, it´s been months where i´ve just not felt okay. in fact, looking back, it felt that i had been holding my breath. ah. you will say "she´s busy with a thesis. of course she feels like that." no. this has nothing to do with thesis-writing; absolutely nothing to do with work whatsoever.
importantly, however, today i exhaled. and it felt súper good. funny how one forgets what that can feel like.

some quotes re research methods (funny)

2007-05-09T18:29:00.000+01:00

i have a healthy scepticism ( i guess, what else to call it) when it comes to all things "research methodology". well, i remember when in SA my experiences there were such that once in a while you would bump into someone who would swear (very high and very low) by research method x, and that other methods were, by implication, inferior. that always annoyed me somehow because the person did not seem to recognise the limits of their own thinking in this regard. the method used is the one that is the best tool at getting you to the/some answers to your research questions, no? so, quantitative, qualitative. you choose. obviously, i think often/usually people have a preference, or a natural bent with one method or approach, or the other.

but thinking about these things. and having attended the seminar of a DPhil colleague this morning, I thought some light humour (what I regard as humorous at least) would bring some general mirth, and remind folks that in the end, it´s got to be a fun thing, the research that you do.

ok. some quotes:

"Methodological discussions, it has been said, are a good cure for insomnia." (Vernon Valentine Palmer. 53 AJCL 261)

so, i guess all my friends are forewarned re what kinds of mails to expect from me when the next bout of insomnia strikes ;-)

"...sciences which have to busy themselves with their own methodology are sick sciences... (Ralf Michaels quoting Zweigert, Kötz, and further:

"Usually, the scholars who deal with issues of methodology are not the most productive ones."

these are the funny recent ones. if you were expecting more, sorry :-)

---
hhhmmm. quisiera decirles algo. hoy conocí a una chica de Mallorca en una cafetería a la que suelo ir. no sé su nombre, pero hablábamos por un rato y me dí cuenta después: no sé cuándo voy a viajar a Madrid de nuevo. de veras, ahora no me apetece viajar a ningún lado. ah. me acuerdo de una cosa: yesterday´s posting re the movie pan´s labyrinth. it was a story well told, not forgetting that it was set in rather horrid times, near the end of the civil war in Spain. so, not an easy story to tell, nor watch.

spanish shorts (films)

2007-05-08T22:59:00.000+01:00

the other day i took a mini-break and watched some spanish short films. not usually the thing i watch, but they can be quite innovative i suppose. but short films, like short stories, have never been my thing. in this compilation, one of the movies i link to here. the rest i have no time to go through/review now. maybe later. speaking of spanish things (as if i seldom do (smile)) i did watch the movie el laberinto del fauno -- or pan´s labyrinth. unsurprisingly, i loved the scene where the praying mantis autoconverts into a fairy. it was a story well told, in the end.

poniendo a prueba la naturaleza humana

2007-05-06T17:33:00.000+01:00

ENTREVISTA: ENTREVISTA NORMAN MANEA ESCRITOR RUMANO
"En una dictadura no sabes quién se esconde en la sombra"

today there is an interview with Romanian author Norman Manea, titled as above, and which translates as "in a dictatorship you don´t know who is hiding in the shadows". i have been thinking about these things of late, prompted by a series of readings in the past year or so. but also, last Friday i went with friends to watch "The Lives of Others" ("Das Leben der Anderen" in its original German, "La vida de los otros" to Spanish friends). on the one hand i wondered then how you must feel if as a German one watches the movie. i mean, yes, some points in the movie are funny in an absurd way e.g. where an informer puts his/her spin on events that the observed persons are engaging in. but looking beyond the two+ hrs of entertainment that a movie brings, the sad truth at base is that the scenarios depicted in the movie was what people had to live with for decades. the link between the movie and the Norman Manea interview is the following: he says that a close friend of his had spied on him. but the friend had told him from the get-go. but still that this does not change the fact for the effect that it had, because the sense of intimacy of the private life is lost in this kind of circumstance. think about it for a second; put yourself in his shoes. he might sit back and think: my best friend is informing on me, but he has confessed to doing so. am i supposed to feel better for having received the confession? after all, still intimate details of my life get passed on to others.

which brings me to a question about national psyche. as i had asked a friend the other day: how does a nation recover where almost everyone (and i think the statistics would indicate (if i remember Timothy Garton Ash correctly re the Stasi and its system of informers -- as many as three out of four persons were informers (i might be wrong with this stat) ) is spying on their loved ones, friends, and neighbours, how do you, as a nation, get over that? yes, you can rather clinically state that when the infrastructure that supported such a system is no longer there; when people lack the incentive, the behaviour does not persist. but still, how do people start to trust one another? surely a lack of trust persists somehow? for instance, Manea says in the interview
(legend: R = his reply; P = interviewer´s question; my translation in brackets)

R...En un sistema totalitario, todo el mundo sospecha del otro, no sabes quién se esconde en la sombra.
(in a totalitarian system, the whole world suspects the other, you don´t know who´s hiding in the shadows)

P. Como en la película La vida de los otros.... (like in the movie The Lives of Others...)

....

P. Las dictaduras ponen a prueba la naturaleza humana.
(dictatorships put to the test human nature)

R. Una prueba muy difícil. Y es mejor no poner a prueba a las personas. Te juegas la vida, la de tu familia, la de tus hijos... Es difícil encontrar una solución aceptable con la que puedas vivir sin sentir vergüenza.
(a very difficult test. and it is best to not test people. you play with their lives, the lives fo their families, their children... it is difficult fidning an acceptable solution with which you can live without feeling ashamed)

P. ¿Cómo le afectó a usted esto?
(how did this affect you?)

R. La censura siempre estaba cambiando las reglas. El sistema era una pirámide absurda, y era imposible expresarse de manera crítica. Pertenecías al Estado. Para trabajar necesitabas el permiso del partido. Te entrenaban para ser prudente, suspicaz, inhibido. Y tampoco te sentías seguro en la intimidad.
(censorship always changed the rules. the system was an absurd pyramid, and it was difficult to express yourself critically. you belonged to the State. to work you needed the party membership card (or also translates as: you needed permission from the Party). you were trained to be prudent, distrustful, inhibited. and even in the sphere of the intimate did you not feel secure.)

P. ¿Hasta en la intimidad? (even in the private sphere?)

--
he then goes on to describe the case of a close friend informing on him. to me, the question is of interest because i do wonder how nations recover. i mean, yes, in south africa we had "truth and reconciliation", but still, sometimes people still don´t know how to trust one another. i´ve seen this most pressingly in cases, very much post-apartheid, where we had attempts at regional cooperation, but where the levels of distrust were such that cooperation was very difficult. even today, so many years later, this can still apply.

i guess, and zooming out a bit, you have this notion of "how to trust" in any society where there has been division of some sort.

moving to another point:
today i was reading about the case of a judge in Spain whose reputation has been brought into question by the Spanish opposition party, the Partido Popular. the latter had said that the judge had effected a certain judicial action so as to create a diversion from something else which was happening on the Spanish political scene and which was damaging to the current ruling party. today, the Spanish president responds that he is concerned by the kind of opposition politics that the opposition were entering into; that their questionning of the integrity of the judicial system was damaging for the state of democracy in Spain. the details are somehow irrelevant, in that the point i want to bring in here is that some time ago i had attended a public lecture by Ronald Dworkin. a lot of the talk espoused the arguments set forth in his book "Is Democracy Possible Here?" one of the main points he made was of how the level of political debate e.g. in the US, in Britain, needed to be raised, since latrerday politics had devolved into mutual acts of mudslinging, which then becomes (unfortunately) the popular standard for a notion of democracy, a là "if i can sling mud, then we must have a healthy democracy (because in non-democratic regimes you don´t even get to sling mud of course). i remember speaking with friends after, and i´d commented that this same US/UK view of politics got exported to other parts of the globe, and imported then wholesale into young democracies (e.g. Spain, e.g. South Africa). and people then in these places adopted the same reasoning of "well, we must be a healthy democracy if we can sling mud". moreover, the error being that the mudslinging is mistaken for (or masquerading as) engaging political debate.

so, my half-baked thoughts then. i´m sure i could re-write what´s above if i re-read what´s there. weave through some other pertinent thoughts. adding coherence, etc. but no. not now.

continuing w/ rilke and berger

2007-05-05T15:23:00.000+01:00

this afternoon was great. i read the El Pais, a lovely article by Rafael Argullol, p 17 of today´s edición. He writesa in reference to the 50th anniversary celebrations of the European Community/European Union. He writes that Rainer Maria Rilke is the writer who to him encompasses the notion of the European. Argullol writes:

Naturalmente, la lista de los escritores que podemos asociar a la idea de Europa es muy amplia pero hay uno que, por diversas razones, siempre me parece que es más merecedor que nadie en el momento de los homenajes no realizados. Se trata de Rainer Maria Rilke. Y entre las diversas razones hay una que justifica mi predilección. Este poeta nacido en Praga, que escribía en alemán y también en francés, y que jamás tuvo casa propia, desperdigó su vida en una cincuentena de domicilios situados en los más diferentes rincones del continente. Gracias a esa condición nómada, Rilke fue algo así como el habitante par excellence de una Europa que, si bien todavía no existía como tal, tenía una vigorosa presencia en su imaginación.

Translated (by me):
Naturally, the list of authors we can associate with the idea of Europe is extensive, but there is one (author) who, for various reasons, always seems to me more deserving than anyone else when these homages are made. It is Rainer Maria Rilke. And of the varied reasons, there is one which justifies my predeliction. This poet born in Prague, who wrote in German and French, and even did not have his own house, led his life in fifty-odd houses located in the most different corners of the continent. Thanks to this nomadic condition, Rilke was (as a result) something like the quintessential inhabitant of a Europe that, even if it did not exist formally at the time, existed vigorously in his imagination.

Argullol continues later in the piece: "..., pues Rilke seguramente se dio por satisfecho con encontrar su Toledo, aunque no fuera Toledo sino en Ronda. Bajo esta segunda perspectiva lo aconsejable es la búsqueda independientemente de que el hallazgo se produzca en un paisaje imprevisto."

It is that Rilke had travelled to Spain, with certain expectations vis-a-vis what the journey would be like. But those expectations were not met in the places he had envisioned that they would occur.

(Aye. Sometimes one gets to a point where translation seems inadequate, insufficient. Like an act akin to trying to explain a joke: never as funny, and the punchline is lost in the act of explaining. That is how I feel sometimes when trying to translate Eng-Spanish.) Anyhow, what the paragraph suggests to me very strongly is that sometimes you find what it is that you´re looking for (a sense of home, sometimes a sense of identity), not in the place that you had thought it would be. And sometimes, you do so in the/a place where you least expected that this "finding" would have occurred.

So, speaking of Rilke. One of my all-time favourite reads is the Duino Elegies. I must have read it at least three times already, and it remains beautiful.

----

But, about John Berger :)

I went out, and bought a copy of "and our faces, my heart, brief as photos". An excerpt follows:

My heart born naked
was swaddled in lullabies.
Later alone it wore
poems for clothes.
Like a shirt
I carried on my back
the poetry I had read.

So I lived for half a century
until wordlessly we met.

From my shirt on the back of the chair
I learn tonight
how many years
of learning by heart
I waited for you.

---
p32. (c) John Berger. originally published 1984. Bloomsbury edition (from which I quote) is 2005.

Group re Africa on Facebook

2007-05-04T11:51:00.000+01:00

Strikes a funny chord, for all those who have ever had to "suffer" the kind of verbal exchanges below, as compiled by Sidumiso Dahlia Sibanda at U Sheffield. & thanks to her for creating the group :))

Group name: Africa is not one bloody country!!
Group Type: Geography - General
Group Description: For anyone who is from or lives in or has ever lived in one of the 53 COUNTRIES on the CONTINENT of Africa. Or anyone who has ever said, (or been tempted to say...)

* Just like you're not from "Europe", I am not from "Africa".

* No, I don't speak African, do you speak European?

*(On being congratulated on your good English): "Thank you, I practice every day."

* No, I don't know your friend Anna from Kenya, (even if I was from Kenya, which I'm not!).

* 'o your from Nairobi ei?.......I have a friend in Cape town'

*Swinging from trees is an Olympic sport.

* Yes, I miss my pet cheetah - he was so convenient for taking me to and from school.

* Oh yes, my father's loaded. We lived in the largest cave for miles around!

* Back home in the country 'Africa' we don't wear much - we save our loin cloths and paint for the festive seasons, harvest, marriage and circumcision...clothing is not very popular we tend to keep it natural.

Anyone who has anything to add on, please feel free...

my life is a trail of breadcrumbs

2007-05-03T15:37:00.000+01:00

that´s a possible title for an autobiography ;)
well, note actually, this is my feeble attempt at a title which rings magically like that of Berger´s work. a work which I today remember I had read (this in addition to "Ways of Seeing" as mentioned some days ago). The work in question is "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos". I just LOVE that title. And I have read the book. It is a title which makes you smile with recognition, sigh, and maybe even shed a tear, all at the same time!

After days of academic intensity I always feel in the mood for creative/artistic endeavours. Well, yesterday I attended day 2 of a conference titled the "The Seventh Annual Trans-Atlantic Antitrust Dialogue", hosted by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, where I play a small role in a project of Dr. Philip Marsden. It was a good event. And I say that not motivated by sheer politeness. For one, the meta-nature of the discussions were quite interesting to note (Competition Law folks seem to be a quite amiable bunch (smile)). Though Competition Law is, ostensibly, quite remote from anything else that I do, I did find the discussions and presentations quite helpful in churning up my thinking (If my supervisor must read this, probably he shrieks in horror and says "Oh god, there she goes with her mind running in yet another direction!!" (hahahah)). But ever since my first encounter with Competition Law during my Telecomms Law studies, it is something that I am intrigued by. But, so the breadcrumbs reference is to this notion of my picking up clues here, there and everywhere in some attempt at building a picture of what I want to work on. For instance, I am now browsing the work of Susan DeSanti, which was referred to yesterday.

The artistic endeavour for today has been my search for printed works of Borges. In the end, I walked away from Blackwell´s with Borges´ "Ficciones" (yes, the Spanish); "Las Bicicletas son para el Verano" by Fernando Fernán- Gómez, and "Todas las Almas" by Javier Marías. It is doubtful that I will read any of these _any_ time soon, but I _will_ get to them in the near future. The one by Marías is a novel set in Oxford, so should be interesting, getting his perspective on "here".

is it just me?...

2007-04-29T23:34:00.000+01:00

i´ve been trying to find the following article, received today via an e-mail alert:

An Italian Federalism ? - The State , its Institutions and National Culture as Rule of Law Guarantor

Author(s): Del Duca , L . F . ; Del Duca , P

ISSUE: 2006 ; VOL 54 ; PART 4

Jrnl: Am. J. Comp. L

so, i go looking for it, because the hyperlinks in the alert don´t take me to the actual issue, but to earlier issues of said journal. moreover, the databases h/linked to, seem to have some sort of embargo going, and just-published stuff are not available. of course, this means i need to go looking in other aggregator databases. so, i enter my search text, and get the following error:

somebody slap me!!

for those who cannot read the image text. it says:

"Your query has been intercepted because you may have intended to FIND a document."

hahaahahah.
gggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

conferenciante /conferencer

2007-04-27T21:52:00.000+01:00

first. an amusing quote:

QI Quote of the Day
“Dealing with network executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks.”
ERIC SEVAREID (1912-92) US journalist

given the context, i guess he meant "broadcast tv networks", but my mind hopped to Internet networks and wondered whether the same could be said there. i don´t know. i just wandered (sic).

second.
it is high time that i write about the UniPID/EADI symposium of last week. more especially so, since they today announced an Open Access Dossier on the EADI web site. Some background: UniPID is the Finnish Universities´ Partnership for International Development.
Their mission is "To promote and implement ethically and culturally sustainable development in the world through establishing long-lasting research cooperation, based on the principles of partnership and institutional cooperation, between universities in Finland and their partners in the south."
EADI is the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes, and aims to be the prime professional association for development and regional studies, with member institutions numbering at least 150 across Europe.
the particular aim of the one-day symposium was to look at the problematic of accessing development knowledge. what was interesting to me was to meet persons from the development studies domain (one which i am not too familiar with). the acid test is "will EADI create a domain/subject archive?"; "might they consider encouraging (in some way/shape/form) their associated researchers to deposit their papers in an institutional archive?". i don´t know, and i am not going to try and speak on their behalf. but i did see some encouraging signs, in that the meeting was positive and upbeat, and there was a willingness to grapple with the Open Access debate (the EADI Executive were having their meeting the friday after the thursday symposium). you can see the programme and presentations linked-to from here. as i prepared for the talk; mulling over issues particular to access to development research, i thought, imagine what could be achieved if only African researchers located on other spots on the planet could still stay connected and in tune with their country´s research trends by merely having good (unfettered) information to the research output coming out from their places of origin. people always speak of born-digital documents. so, let me use this shorthand. there i was talking to development studies researchers born-Europe, concerned about having and expanding access to development knowledge. but let´s not then lose sight of the born-Africa or born-LAm researcher located outside of, Africa or Latin America, respectively, who also needs to be "kept in the loop". because, quite obviously, we do consider that the born-African in-Africa researcher needs access to scientific output from his/her country (though it might not always be country-specific -- depends on the discipline e.g. some social science questions may be developing country-specific, for instance; sometimes agriculture, etc). imagine the plusses vis-a-vis countering brain-drain effects if you could just keep researchers connected in such a way to their countries as i think too often when people leave for other climes the connections can become porous. and of course, what i say applies to all disciplines and not just that of development studies. i will not attempt to provide a summary of the papers presented, but merely want to mention my excitement when i saw the empirical research work of my co-presenter, Finnish musicologist Philip Donner. it was a good graphic illustration of the notion of "exposure to ideas", and why it is that we need more systematic archiving of such research materials.
he said "Finland has a number of valuable collections of cultural material from developing countries. Some of them are well documented, and they would deserve to be easily accessible in a dedicated archive. As existing archives have chosen to give priority to national content, it unfortunately seems to be difficult to find a working solution. This situation appears to be similar in other European countries. "
see for instance his video of Selo greetings from Tanzania.

third.
this brings me to a lecture i attended this evening. since it is freedom day, it was rather appropriate that i end up seated in the Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre at the Saïd Business School here at Oxf. this was to listen to Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, giving the John Berger lecture, which he titled "Things subverting ideas: Africa in the British Museum". (if you´ve not read Berger´s "Ways of Seeing" then you´ve missed out... I read it at age 18 and it just about changed my life. seriously.) and MacGregor began his talk by saying "you look in terms of what you know, and sometimes knowing inhibits the looking". indeed. and then he went on to give an eloquent lecture on historical views of Africa, and of how much this has evolved during the past 100 years. for instance, he quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 which claimed that Africa was devoid of development save for that given it by its colonial rulers, that it was "a continent practically without history" (yep, that was MacGregor´s quote from the EB), which he said represented liberal thinking for that time. and so he went, illustrating how some facets (and objects in the British Museum) proved that Africa had always been global and of course was capable of inventing lost wax bronze casting, creating hand-axes which were of aesthetic significance rather than just functional, how Europe had at a point been exporter of raw materials to West Africa (ca. rise of the Ashanti Empire) for processing/fashioning in what is now Benin.
(did you know that Gothic representations of the Madonna swayed because they follow the curvature of the ivory tusk from which they were carved?)
the long-and-short of the talk to me, was how scientific thinking progresses (or not). and more particularly, of how scientific, cultural, and historical thinking about Africa has evolved away from that represented by the 1911 EB. moreover he made an argument for multiculturalism (something i´ve been bumping up against, and see the lack of, in a lot of the legal literature -- legal pluralism as a rather PC notion, but something cast aside rather quickly in most of the scholarly legal discourse). but i digress. he said "we all need to have a deeper understanding of the histories of Africa." and "How do new histories get written?."

fourth.
this theme of "looking" takes me back to the talk i attended yesterday. it was the talk titled "Next Generation Web in a Nutshell" run by the Science Enterprise Centre of the Saïd Business School. Last night folks from the OII spoke, so my coursemate Sangamitra and I attended. We were at the Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre again. The speakers were Bill Dutton (OII), Nir Vulkan (SBS), and Jonathan Zittrain (OII). Well, of course, strictly speaking we would have heard it all before, given that we are OII DPhils. But well, it is interesting sometimes to see how something specialised is packaged for public scientific consumption. The talks were good. i finally understood the philosophy underpinning the stopbadware.org project. before, i knew its nuts-and-bolts, but somehow the context had escaped me. but this brings me to this matter of "looking" (as had been mentioned by MacGregor above), and Jonathan´s longitudinal illustration of the interfaces of various "computers" through the decades. what we saw was a series of limited vendor-defined fx. well, pick- or wake up your mobile phone. probably you have 9 little icons splashed across the screen. the scary thing, as seen from JZ´s presentation, is that this UI (user interface) pattern is repeated when looking back across the decades, and what it illustrates is the vendor deciding which applications you are wont to use.
what you end up with is that users resort/default to this vendor-decides-the-fx-i-have model of information experience and use, since the threats on/via the network are such that the unsuspecting user prefers to rather then relinquish decision-making about the applications s/he wants to install/use, as the risks for attack just become too great. so we move closer to an idiot-box and away from a pc, in the end. dumb terminal, anyone?

the classic blogquote award goes to Jonathan for his declaiming that kids today see TV as a "weird soporific aberration" in response to someone´s question re web 2.0 and convergence.
that´s not funny for its content. no. i think it is true (depending on where on the planet you are; i mean, let´s not get carried away by the notion that "tv is dead" just yet. it still lingers in many parts of the globe. well, i guess he didn´t say "tv´s dead"...) bueno. well, i don´t have a tv here in the UK. i refuse, on principle, to pay a TV licence. same as i did in SA. that´s why "no tv". but.
the quote was funny for being a discordant yet catchy wordstring.

;)

--

fifth.
about writing histories. i was today thinking and half-amused in my thoughts about south african literature, and questions around representivity. i never became enchanted by south african literary fiction at an early age (and the stuff they shove at you at a young age) simply because i couldn´t relate. i mean, i saw a copy of Olive Schreiner´s "Story of an African Farm" in the bookstore yesterday. nice story, saw the series, etc. but let´s get real, that was not my experience of life in South Africa. i´d not been to a farm ever during my childhood. that´s because i was confined to the city and suburbs. and that was the thing: the literature being published represented the experiences of those who had access to the publishing scene and market. that has changed now. there are some stories out about life in the townships, for instance. and they even get translated into spanish (i recall seeing a work last year in casa del libro in madrid). and yet, that township story has not entirely been my experience either. but, in the end, my early unhappy experiences with South African fiction just turned me away from reading that in my idle moments. sometimes i wonder to myself what it is then that i would write, if i, of a day, sat down and gave myself this task of writing a story representative of my South Africa... dunno... too ill-defined for now.

freedom day, south africa

2007-04-27T12:51:00.000+01:00

it is like one of those events, say a birthday of someone you know. in the run-up to the thing you know that it´s coming, and you tell people about it, but then the day in question, you forget. it is as if there is a disconnect between the date "27 april" and the event "birthday" or in this case "freedom day". (thanks to hussein for reminding me what it is called (oops)). yes, it is freedom day in south africa. it is a holiday to celebrate the first democratic elections held 27 april 1994. as i´ve said, i didn´t forget the day and it´s significance, but somehow forgot that it was called "freedom day". i do remember it well, that 27 april 1994. there was a light rain, a drizzle, as it is called. but not really cold; only a bit chilly. i lived in the city, so walked to my nearest polling station which was the cape town civic centre. there was a long queue, but it didn´t really matter. the longer queue made things all the more pleasant in that it gave everyone an excuse to linger-longer. there was a buzz in the air, with people chit-chatting to whoever was ahead or behind them: the rainbow nation out in full colour, queueing excitedly to make their mark. that was a great morning. i remember what i felt on walking home that afternoon. and i probably looked a lot like... the cheshire cat (since i am in oxf, there must be an oxf reference (hahaha)).

oh, later the day was (only) slightly marred by reports of alleged voting irregularities in places, but it was difficult to discern if these were legit or merely the usual party-political bickering that occurs (what´s referred to as "crispación" in Spanish, and of which there has been a lot of of late in Spanish politics.).

so, it´s freedom day. happy freedom day to all my S. African compatriots!

---

some days are just one of those where you "don´t know your arse from your elbow", as my mom would say. well, she said that of other people, never about us, and for sure never about herself. there is the more colourful afrikaans semantic equivalent, which is "rigtingbefok". afrikaans is a beautiful language -- people don´t always seem to understand that i have no hard feelings about having been forced to learn it.

well, thinking about my mom, i thought about how one knew that she was angry. it was always rather subtle. she had no need for harsh words. it was more in the tone. you knew you had pushed your luck when she stopped to look at you with those green eyes of hers, and said "i´ll box your ears". or another indication was when she would run through the names of siblings before she got to yours. and at that, there aren´t many siblings, so the list was not a long one. but it rang "Sean, Gail, Jennifer!", in that order, from oldest to youngest. then you knew she meant business.

and i write in the past tense because these are things from my childhood. it´s been a long time since i´ve experienced this kind of treatment from her. these days, when i am able to visit, the best thing is when she makes me a scrambled-egg-and-onion sandwich, and a cup of tea. it´s that simple.

but so, i was remembering these things on this freedom day.

lists

2007-04-22T19:38:00.000+01:00

i´ve been spending much of the afternoon sifting through papers. you may think: you´ve only been in oxf 6 months, so there shouldn´t be much to sift. well, well.

funny thing is, i´ve just stumbled across a paper; a napkin from a spanair flight i took to barcelona back in january 2006. i remember at the time reading the in-flight magazine, and prompted by that, i´d scribbled on the napkin, places where i´d wanted to go still in that year. they were:

maastricht
brussels
helsinki
berlin
oviedo
granada
bilbao
toulouse
stockholm

funny. i´d forgotten about the list. well, the romantic hollywood thing to say would be that i´d compiled that list and set out to achieve it. (yeah, right).
i´ve always believed it is the very act of compiling the list, rather than holding on to it, that makes all the difference.

so, i can cross of my list above: maastricht, brussels, helsinki, berlin, granada. hhhmmm. five out of nine: not too shabby.
---
funny thing also about being in the UK is that i am reconnecting with a whole lot of things from my childhood. i think i´ve made mention of this before. i guess it is because we had so many connections tv-wise or literature-wise with British things.
Rupert Bear -- i used to love reading rupert bear, too bad they got rid of the golliwog, which was one of my favorite characters (and then at some point it became politically incorrect to have the golliwog -- this is how adults make kids´ lives complicated...); Paddington Bear -- the other day in the airport i looked at some paddington bear books, and discovered for the first time that his byline had been "the bear from darkest peru" or some such. never knew that. i didn´t really read paddington, but had stuff: like clay/putty set with paddington bear moulds. Pooh Bear i never got the hang of, then nor now. Wombles I used to watch and read avidly. also liked Morph a whole lot.

Ha! Genial! I just googled the title of the first book I´d ever read independently when aged four. It was "Rug plays ball".

And people might say "how is this possible, if you grew up in sanction-isolated apartheid-era South Africa". i guess because life still goes on, regardless... people always try to create a certain kind of normal in abnormal conditions.
--
the thing about lists is that there is a pattern for me. i make lists. and i´m not talking about day-to-day to-do lists. i make dreamy lists: of things i´d like to do. then i put them aside and they get lost in the papers i tend to amass. then months (18 in the case mentioned above) or years later i find the list when sorting papers. and it´s always weird how much of what i´d written in some act of quasi-whimsy, i had actually achieved by then.

back to the childhood theme: one of my dad´s favorite musicals is South Pacific, and so i know the soundtrack by heart from having heard it 1000+ times during my childhood. so this whole list-compilation thing reminded me of that song that one of the characters sings, which goes

happy talking talking
happy talk
talk about things you like to do
you´ve got to have a dream
if you don´t have a dream
how you gonna have a dream come true

;)

just a quote

2007-04-21T21:39:00.000+01:00

i was browsing through some literature and found the following:

De todas las formas que el hombre encontró
para hacerse daño a sí mismo,
la peor de ellas fue el Amor.

by Paulo Coelho
from
El Peregrino de Compostela (Diario de un mago).

Translation:
Of all the ways which man has found
to hurt himself,
the worst has been Love.
---

It caught my attention, precisely because people don´t think of love in these terms usually. Anyhow.

yet another helsinki pic

2007-04-21T20:45:00.000+01:00

another pic of Finland. more precisely, from Helsinki, and the memorial to Finnish poet Runeberg. what i did in Helsinki was walk around without having looked at too much detail/homework on the city beforehand. i wanted to know the minimum, broad brushstrokes, and walk around and "see" things for myself, and not be told what must be seen by some guidebook. i wanted to encounter things without having been prepped too much beforehand. anyhow, i saw this monument but what struck me was not the poet on top, but the "Maiden of Finland" as depicted in the pic above. there was something about her expression which was sad yet beguiling. this is one of my favorite pics from my visit.

another aspect re my Helsinki visit, was that it was great to be close to a working (as opposed to "decorative") harbour. i had not been close to a mass of water for a year now (was 1 year ago in Cape Town --- you wouldn´t believe how much i miss the ocean, or the joy of being at the coast) and i had lived for 8 yrs in the city (cf. suburbs) in Cape Town, and walked every Sunday almost through the harbour with my dogs. you can´t begin to imagine how happy i was to hear a seagull; see at a distance the harbour cranes reaching skyward; or eventually get down to the water´s edge. i ran. i´m not kidding. i´d walked south-west to the non-touristy part of the city, and got to a hilltop park. from there i caught my first glimpse of water, looking ahead between a clump of buildings. so, made a beeline for the water´s edge.

helsinki / helsingfors

2007-04-19T16:34:00.000+01:00

i write from Helsinki. I am here for the UniPID-EADI Symposium: Accessing Development Knowledge – Partnership Perspectives. It´s been a good day. I will do a write-up on the symposium later. For now, I post a pic from the sky as we approached Finland. if you look closely you can see little specks of island (there are 188,000 islands in finland; so said my guidebook)

note to self (otra parte)

2007-04-01T23:33:00.000+01:00

i found the big answer to my big monday question. specifically, questions 6b.i and 6b.ii.
it had been there for some time, right before my eyes almost, but somehow went undiscovered.

the things people say

2007-03-30T01:23:00.000+01:00

¡hola guapa! --- that is what people might say to you when you´re in spain. like many things, it´s not said gratuitously. well, to phrase it differently: it´s said less often than expletives. and contrary to what an outsider (i.e someone outside of spain) might think, this is not some form of common garden variety harassment either. friends might say it to one another when meeting up on the street, for instance. but i remember the first time someone had said it to me. i had moved to a new flat, and new neighbourhood. and lived in an apartment complex where there were four blocks overlooking the same small plaza. one morning as i exited my apartment block this little old lady of maybe 80-something hollered to me, at a volume which seemed entirely disproportionate to her physical size and frail appearance: "¡hola guapa!" (hello beautiful)
i smiled, and blushed, and said meekly "buenos días señora". that was the first time, but it also wasn´t the last. also, you will find that others who are sufficiently familiar with you, might also start to use this epithet. but, no. familiarity is not the thing. since you might be in a bar or cafeteria and the person serving might say "guapa, dime qué te ponga" or some such. from time to time friends write and start their mails in that way. and though i might resort to using this kind of salutation once in a while, it never feels right for me when doing so.

well, the reason i mention this is that today here in oxf, much to my surprise, this kind of thing happened. i had gone to a store to have some passport photos taken, and upon my return to collect the pics some 15 minutes later, as i entered the store the assistant (who was not british) said "hello beautiful." despite my experiences of this in spain, i was still rather surprised at this greeting here. but then i went to buy coffee at my usual place and there the guy was also on about "how beautiful you are". i told him he was just trying to ensure that i would buy my coffee from him for the duration of my dphil, while i chuckled and stood there feeling like that awkward teenager whose relative has just arrived at the annual family reunion, and he/she is pinching your cheeks as if you were still that toddler of years gone by...
aye.
---
speaking of "aye". there are few things as amusing as overhearing the average spanish-speaking toddler say "aye". they sound so world-weary that it sounds rather absurd. when you hear it you stop in your tracks and can´t help but laugh since even the old folks don´t say it in the same way. really peculiar.

musical /lyrical interlude

2007-03-28T21:19:00.000+01:00

the blog title reminds me of something which i wonder, whether it is cultural for here: eating ice-cream during the intermission at the theatre. i´d not seen that in SA. twice i´ve been to the ballet. today to the ballet in oxford, and last week at the royal opera house, also to see the ballet. today it was "cyrano" (de bergerac), last week it was "onegin" at covent garden. thát was a dream-come-true. more so because i´d thought that ballet was something i´d left behind in my childhood. so, thanks to the collective endeavour of friends, i´d went last week and saw that this didn´t have to be the case.

i like following pop culture. one of the peculiar things about being in the UK is that it feels distinctly different reading the MOJO or Q magazine when in the UK than when in SA. Maybe it is that one feels close-enough-to-touch. or that i feel i could travel rather quickly to places where the artists or bands are/were from... i do miss reading the Spanish version of Rolling Stone magazine though, and it is difficult to get a copy of outside of Spain. i´ve never been a great fan of the US Rolling Stone, though for a time i did read it when in SA. anyhow. Jennifer Lopez (don´t the press in Spain just love her) has her first spanish-lyrics album out. and i like the following song:

Lyrics found at letrasmania.com:

Artista: Jennifer Lopez
Álbum: Como Ama Una Mujer
Título: Te Voy A Querer

Aunque todo lo que ves se terminara
Aunque ya nunca volviera a amanecer
Si de pronto en el silencio me encontrara
Yo me iria tras de ti lo sabes bien
Y si fueras tu mi ultima esperanza
Tras tu huella mi camino buscare

Creo en eso que el amor te lleva al cielo
De pedirme en el naufragio, salvame
Creo en eso de esperar el dia nuevo
Que lo nuestro es para siempre ya lo se
Y que importa si el destino se indignara
O si alguien dijera que este amor no puede ser
Ay yo...

Si tu voz no la escuchara entre mis suenos
Y tus ojos no me guiaran para ver
Volveria de otra vida por tu encuentro
Volveria para verte creeme [x2]

Ya las dudas y los miedos se me fueron
Ya no tengo mas secretos que esconder
Y a partir de este momento yo decreto
que no hay nadie que me pueda detener
No voy a pensar en que vendra manana
Quiero despertar contigo cada amanecer

[Repetir Coro]

Las penas pasadas ahora son historia
El umbral de las traiciones ya cruze
Siento que tu amor me llevara a la gloria
Estoy lista pa' quererte ya lo se

[Repetir Coro]

Te voy a querer aunque se oponga el viento
Y nadie este de acuerdo, te juro que esta ves, ay yo
Te voy a querer sin pedir opinion, sin dar explicaciones
Soy libre pa' escoger, ay yo Te voy a querer

what an IR shouldn´t be...

2007-03-18T02:39:00.000Z

i can hardly believe that i last blogged 24 feb. i´ve been to madrid, and back, and now the term has even ended here at the uni.

but be that as it may, here i am on my soapbox, to say: an institutional repository (IR) should NOT be a glorified (or even a less-than-glorified) bibliographic/abstract index! c´mon, thát´s why library catalogues went online to start with. to my mind, when i hop along to any one of the e-prints- or dspace-based collections, i expect, yes EXPECT scholarly works there to be available fulltext, and openly so. this is my understanding of the use of these brands.

my little rant is due to my minutes-ago experience of browsing a collection (more through happenstance), only to find that what was listed in the law collection of the IR were merely mostly abstracts linked to alternative locations (toll-gated journal publication sites) . in effect, where such locations then required access (sign-in / logon). no reasons were given on the IR page for their not simply providing the fulltext in situ (right then and there). such misuses of the IR brands (by brands, i mean "e-prints" and "dspace") should be prevented. i haven´t browsed other collections within the same IR to see if this kind of thing i describe was/is a regular occurrence. nevertheless, the cases that i have seen are enough to provoke my ire.

in sum, universities and research institutes: you shouldn´t get to call your collection an e-prints or dspace collection if all you´re doing is providing a service which is in effect an online catalogue with links to a closed-access collection. for sure, this "catalogue" gives exposure to the authors´ works somehow (via this online abstract) and yet, let´s face it, you can´t pretend that it´s open access. this kind of misuse dilutes the notion of open access and distorts the originally intended uses of the e-prints and dspace softwares.

so there i was in brussels...

2007-02-23T23:47:00.000Z

and saturday night sneaked off to the cinema. i say "sneaked off" but well, that sense was more derived from the joy of going to the cine in an unknown place than that it was some kind of forbidden event. i went to the UGC moviehouse (or rather complex, one of these modern cineplexes) in the Place De Brouckère zone. so, the heart of the city and close to the tourist area, the Grand Place, etc. a number of the movies i´d seen already, and then those that i hadn´t were being shown in VF (french version). so, i eventually decided on "inland empire", the lynch movie. but not so much because i´d registered that it was david lynch, but rather, laura dern, and she´s always good. i looked forward to seeing what the belgian ( i guess brussels) moviegoing experience would be like.

i sat myself down. the audience was very quiet during the trailers and ads. so unlike the chatty brits when i go to the cinema in oxf. who would have thought, right?! then, the movie had english audio (well, its original american), and then french and dutch subtitles, one row per language. that made for an interesting linguistic experience. the movie started. i thought, "oh what an interesting title/credits intro" it was new, and different to stuff i´d seen recently, what with the fading in and out of the credits, and then the background image of the old-style (meaning of the "his masters voice" era, ca. 1930s) record needle and spinning record. eventually faded out with this searchlight-like light on the extreme right. switch to first scene. bunnies!!!!!! in human dress. or humans, in bunny outfits. and i sat there thinking, "okay david lynch. convince me this time that you´re worth watching". see, the thing is that i´ve always tried to watch his works. just because they are so different and quirky. but usually my mind starts to wonder at some point, and i don´t feel i want to indulge him for much longer once that mental shift has happened. and i thought further whether my time in spain had sufficiently changed me, so much so that i could sit through an entire david lynch movie. and so it was. though, i don´t know if spain precisely had made me more tolerant of lynch´s artistry. maybe it has. maybe i´m just that slight bit older. though i suspect spain has s/thing to do with it.

but wasn´t the movie just a labyrinth; a spiral within spirals, and the blurring of reality and fiction; between the movie we were watching, and the movie being made within the movie. after a while, it was difficult to tell where one stopped, the other started, and then again the thing swung back on itself. this way and that. interesting. surreal. and a personal feat: it was the first time that i´d sat through an entire david lynch work. i liked the nina simone song he used.

speaking of surreal. tonight i watched "un chien andalou". all 20 minutes of it. it is a classic for surrealism having a cinematic expression. ok, ésta me suena mal. es una obra clásica en que da expresión al surrealismo en forma de cine. it´s a work of luis buñuel and salvador dalí, for those who don´t know. by comparison, lynch´s antics are mild :)

some weeks ago i´d watched another classic movie. this time "muerte de un ciclista" by Juan Antonio Bardem. a movie that was regarded as a critique of the franco regime at the time it was made. see great snippet on youtube. but then again, i´ve been watching a number of movies over the weekends. some weeks ago i watched "qué he hecho yo para merecer esto" by almodóvar which makes a deliberate mockery of spanishness, and things that are generally regarded as being quintessentially spanish.
also, La Ardilla Roja by Julio Medem. I´d seen it in 2000 during summer school, but watched it again. Amantes by Vicente Aranda; Bilbao and Jamón Jamón, both by Bigas Luna (i´d seen jamón jamón twice already in SA years ago, and must say that my understanding of the movie this time was radically different to the first two initial impressions; Dancer in the dark by Lars von Trier; Hola, estas sola? which is by Íciar Bollain, but for some reason the lib record says it is Julio Medem (maybe he produced); Abre los ojos by Alejandro Aménabar (the original spanish movie on which Vanilla Sky was based); Goodbye Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker; Dias Contados by Imanol Uribe; and Tsotsi by Gavin Hood (the SA movie). and my supervisor will say "so that´s what she´s doing with her time" hahaha. well, note, it´s been my offtime distractions ever since i´ve moved here. let´s call it cultural education/edification :))))))
also nice way to keep my "spanish ear" tuned.

The interesting thing, in looking for worthy linkto´s for the above movies, is that most english-language reviews that i come across for jamón jamón just don´t get the point of the movie (the wikipedia write-up just sucks. surprisingly. i guess I should change it...instead of just complain). also, i guess, you need to have lived in spain, after all, to truly make sense of the movie.

what gets left behind

2007-02-06T00:38:00.000Z

this past weekend i´d had an opportunity to see some footage of cape town on screen (cinema) and for the first time i´d had this sense, upon viewing the city, of a strong feeling of "home". it was that in the movie i´d seen there was a setting in which the actress is in the V&A Waterfront, and particularly behind her is the Cape Grace Hotel. and i was reminded of how i used to walk by the hotel on an almost daily basis when i would take my dog Yuki for a walk. he particularly enjoyed going to the jetty behind the hotel to swim for a bit, especially when the city CBD got excruciatingly hot... Yuki is still in SA, along with my other dogs.

so, with my thoughts centred on the parts of my life that i´d left behind in SA, monday was weird in that i felt disconnected from the life/experiences/friends i´d had in spain. in some regard the time in spain all starts to feel like a dream. and with continued, and then prolonged, absence, my ability with the spanish language goes rusty (little-by-little), and i feel i´m losing connection with the people i know (or knew) there (same as what happened when i´d left SA).

so, feeling all of this just isn´t much fun...

NEW PORTAL: African Language Technology (AfLaT)

2007-01-24T20:56:00.000Z

the below sent to me by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver,

ANNOUNCING A NEW PORTAL: African Language Technology (AfLaT)
URL: http://aflat.org/

Interest in language technology research for African languages has
seen a tremendous increase in recent years. This is marked by the
growing availability of digital corpora, dictionaries and tools for
many (formerly) resource-scarce African languages. The AfLaT website
aims to catalogue these resources for the benefit of researchers
interested in African language technology.

AfLaT.org contains a steadily growing collection of bibliographic
resources, web links and tools, provided by AfLaT members. We would
like to invite you to join this community effort and share
information, discuss research topics or just simply browse through
the available content. Registration is free of charge.

We hope to see you soon!

Guy De Pauw, Belgium
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Belgium & South Africa
Peter Waiganjo Wagacha, Kenya

hadas / faeries

2007-01-22T21:29:00.000Z

lately i´ve been thinking that it can be said that there are two types of people in this world, those who appreciate fairytales (cuentos de hadas) and those who don´t. i find it fascinating the responses elicited in those who don´t like fairytales, or call them ridiculous, or say stories are far-fetched, or even escapist. and i ask myself "what´s so wrong with make-believe that it needs to be denounced in such a fashion?" for thát is how i would characterise some of the responses i´ve heard. well, for one, i have seen the movie "the Holiday" twice, and base much of my opinion on that. i´ve heard many an animated discussion, with people either liking the movie or not liking it (both vehemently). for me, cinema has always been a form of escape, which inherently sounds negative but isn´t meant to. i like being engrossed in the story on the screen. but this post is not so much about an appreciation of/for cinema as it is an opinion about the appreciation of/for fairytales, even when (let´s say "in spite of being") "grown up". I think people who can´t appreciate good storytelling just take themselves and the world far too seriously (says she who can be súper-serious sometimes).

then the other day i´d bought a new old tori amos cd, and one of the songs goes:
We may fall then stumble
Upon a carousel
It could take us anywhere

that´s when i posted some pics of a carousel on flickr (i´d removed all other pics some days before, motivated by the idea of "a new year, needs new pics"...) subsequently, when i´d enthused about the tori amos lyrics, the imagery she conjures up, and her general playfulness with language, a friend mentioned that her imagery was so fairy-like, and so wasn´t sure if that appealed.

what bothers me really, and the reason for this posting, is this sense that there is a fear in folks. yes, a fear of fairytales. you´ll say "she´s gone cuckoo". my question is why must people be so resistant to considering the possibility of what make-believe can conjure up? and you see it in all spheres of life, not just in whether people like/dislike actual fairytales.

interesting.

Oh, while pondering the above, there appeared an interview in a college newsletter, with Dr Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor in English:

Q: Are supernatural figures, such as fairies, still relevant in today´s society?
A: Fairies have become a symbol of cute disbelief: people may want to believe in them, but they are not credible. This has a lot to do with their portrayal in the works of Shakespeare.

Fairies have died as an active belief, but have been replaced by aliens who come from a largely undiscovered universe but perform the same function as supernatural figures, abducting us and impregnating us. A reason for this change is that the world has largely been discovered and mapped, mysterious beings such as fairies need to come from the unknown.

Okay, interesting opinion. I don´t agree that aliens have replaced fairies, but well... Also, fairies and fairytales exist in other cultures, where Shakespearean portrayals would be irrelevant. So, maybe the Purkiss´ assertion could hold for English-speakers, but not necessarily anywhere else. But, see the entire interview, why don´t you, which dealt with her start at the uni, women at oxf, and the childrens´ books she writes with her son and daughter.

about SL (again) & capitalism

2007-01-10T15:58:00.000Z

Some weeks ago I blogged about Second Life as seeming to me a digi expression of a capitalist ethic, a là "...merely some digital instantiation of a capitalist ethic. yeah, let´s call it "EXTREME CAPITALISM". the fiscal equivalent of extreme sports!? "

So, imagine my surprise (though maybe "surprise" is too strong a word) when I saw the below in an online newspiece:
"Second Life is a subscription-based, 3-D fantasy world devoted to capitalism — a 21st century version of Monopoly that generates real money for successful players." (my emphasis).

This is from the story titled: IBM to build virtual stores in Second Life (9 Jan, Assoc. Press)
The story starts as follows:

"International Business Machines Corp. didn't throw a lavish casino party or set up an over-the-top booth to mark its return to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) after a decade away. Rather, the company reserved its most ambitious consumer initiative for the virtual world. On Monday, IBM announced plans to build virtual stores for Sears Holdings Corp. and Circuit City Stores Inc. in the popular online world Second Life. The partnerships could help IBM expand its consulting services to corporate clients interested in the growing number of people who belong to immersive online environments, also called the "3-D internet.""

The piece then goes on to describe the nuts-and-bolts of these online virtual stores:

"At the Sears Virtual Home, avatars of IBM architects greeted guests with glasses of merlot and invitations to sit in recliners and watch flat-screen televisions in a fantasy home theatre.
The idea is to help consumers see how Sears refrigerators, televisions, counter tops, garage doors, storage cabinets and other products look in a 3-D environment. Visitors can swap cabinets and counter tops to determine which combination they like most, and they may follow links to purchase items from the main Sears website."

What the story highlights for me, apart from the devotion-to-capitalism bit, is this blurring between the virtual and the real. (See my earlier blog re this matter.) To me it is that the virtual becomes subsumed in the real, and so is "real-yet-different". Does that make any sense? I mean that digital reality is still reality, but just different by degrees. I guess that´s why we´ve had the coining of the term "virtual reality".... Interesting question, I can´t recall the history of the term.
So, let´s go over to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#Background

Terminology
The origin of the term virtual reality is uncertain. The Judas Mandala, a 1982 novel by Dan Brodes where the context of use is somewhat different from that defined above. The VR developer Jaron Lanier claims that he coined the term [1]. A related term coined by Myron Krueger, "artificial reality", has been in use since the 1970s. The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as Brainstorm and The Lawnmower Man (and others mentioned below), and the VR research boom of the 1990s was motivated in part by the non-fiction book Virtual Reality by Howard Rheingold. The book served to demystify the heretofore niche area, making it more accessible to less technical researchers and enthusiasts, with an impact similar to what his book The Virtual Community had on virtual community research lines closely related to VR.

university education, what it is

2007-01-07T19:15:00.000Z

Thanks to Willard McCarty at KCL for the pointer via the HUMANIST list. (HUMANIST was the first list I subbed to when I first got online, and it´s been ever the pleasure since, to receive those mailings, even though i haven´t made as much time as i should to read them in recent times. maybe the problem had its source there...) The below is copied twice. The original uses "man", so I went along and substituted all of those instances with "woman" etc, merely to see how the text would read. see comments below.

para varones

>The proper function of a University in national education is tolerably
>well understood. At least there is a tolerably general agreement about
>what a University is not. It is not a place of professional education.
>Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men
>for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not
>to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and
>cultivated human beings. It is very right that there should be public
>facilities for the study of professions. It is well that there should be
>Schools of Law, and of Medicine, and it would be welt if there were
>schools of engineering, and the industrial arts. The countries which
>have such restitutions are greatly the better for them; and there is
>something to be said for having them m the same localities, and under
>the same general superintendence, as the establishments devoted to
>education properly so called. But these things are no part of what every
>generation owes to the next, as that on which its civilization and worth
>will principally depend. They are needed only by a comparatively few,
>who are under the strongest private inducements to acquire them by their
>own efforts, and even those few do not require them until after their
>education, m the ordinary sense, has been completed. Whether those whose
>speciality they are, will learn them as a branch of intelligence or as a
>mere trade, and whether, having learnt them, they will make a wise and
>conscientious use of them or the reverse, depends less on the manner m
>which they are taught their profession, than upon what sort of minds
>they bring to it--what kind of intelligence, and of conscience, the
>general system of education has developed in them. Men are men before
>they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers: and if
>you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves
>capable and sensible lawyers or physicians. What professional men should
>carry away with them from an University, is not professional knowledge,
>but that which should direct the use of their professional knowledge,
>and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technicalities
>of a special pursuit. Men may be competent lawyers without general
>education, but it depends on general education to make them philosophic
>lawyers--who demand, and are capable of apprehending, principles,
>instead of merely cramming their memory with details. And so of all
>other useful pursuits, mechanical included. Education makes a man a more
>intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching
>him how to make shoes: it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and
>the habits it impresses.

para mujeres

>The proper function of a University in national education is tolerably
>well understood. At least there is a tolerably general agreement about
>what a University is not. It is not a place of professional education.
>Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit women
>for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not
>to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and
>cultivated human beings. It is very right that there should be public
>facilities for the study of professions. It is well that there should be
>Schools of Law, and of Medicine, and it would be welt if there were
>schools of engineering, and the industrial arts. The countries which
>have such restitutions are greatly the better for them; and there is
>something to be said for having them m the same localities, and under
>the same general superintendence, as the establishments devoted to
>education properly so called. But these things are no part of what every
>generation owes to the next, as that on which its civilization and worth
>will principally depend. They are needed only by a comparatively few,
>who are under the strongest private inducements to acquire them by their
>own efforts, and even those few do not require them until after their
>education, m the ordinary sense, has been completed. Whether those whose
>speciality they are, will learn them as a branch of intelligence or as a
>mere trade, and whether, having learnt them, they will make a wise and
>conscientious use of them or the reverse, depends less on the manner m
>which they are taught their profession, than upon what sort of minds
>they bring to it--what kind of intelligence, and of conscience, the
>general system of education has developed in them. Women are women before
>they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers: and if
>you make them capable and sensible women, they will make themselves
>capable and sensible lawyers or physicians. What professional women should
>carry away with them from an University, is not professional knowledge,
>but that which should direct the use of their professional knowledge,
>and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technicalities
>of a special pursuit. Women may be competent lawyers without general
>education, but it depends on general education to make them philosophic
>lawyers--who demand, and are capable of apprehending, principles,
>instead of merely cramming their memory with details. And so of all
>other useful pursuits, mechanical included. Education makes a woman a more
>intelligent shoemaker, if that be her occupation, but not by teaching
>her how to make shoes: it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and
>the habits it impresses.

Note how, if the masculine form is used, the text can seem sexist. However, when the feminine form is used, the text can seem paternalistic...
The words are those of John Stuart Mill
<http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Essay.php?recordID=1274>

well I´ll be...

2007-01-05T22:22:00.000Z

in my personal homepage to date i´ve mentioned that my learning Spanish goes back to when i had received and read the English version of Christopher Unborn by Carlos Fuentes (Cristóbal Nonato in Spanish). but thinking further, i recalled that the subtle Spanish influences go back further than this, but admittedly Fuentes´s "influence" was the proverbial "tipping point".

for one, i recall that my aunt Peggy (mom´s sister) had brought my sister and I flamenco dolls when i was aged six or so (see pic above, courtesy of http://www.flamencoexport.com/imgx/productos/munecas/669.jpg)

i copy the pic since the doll looks a lot like the one i had. she too wore an ochre/yellow dress, though her headpiece was yellow and not black like in the photo. and i had a male doll (this was before SA markets were open, so no Barbie and Ken, thankfully!!). i don´t know what became of those flamenco dolls, now that i think about it.

and then, another thing is that i saw a Don Quixote television series when I was about the same age (six), on South African television. the way memory fades, i´d somehow always thought that it had been a British animated version, but scouting around on the Net now, i see that in fact it was a Spanish production. See YouTube clip.

and more than that, that the voice of Don Quixote was none other than that of Fernando Fernán Gómez, highly acclaimed Spanish actor (though, truth be told, probably i watched a version dubbed to Afrikaans. but it is funny/amusing seeing the YouTube clip since i see that the series intro song was kept intact. jejejeje).

and more still, when visiting Madrid i make a point of going to the cinema to see Spanish films. in late-December i went for my graduation ceremony, and so took myself along to see the documentary about ...Fernando Fernán Gómez, called "La Silla de Fernando", recently (Sept. 2006) screened at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

okay, all of this does start to sound a bit creepy ;)

but well...

filming in Oxford in January you say??

2007-01-05T20:54:00.000Z

the below from http://www.cinesrenoir.com/proximas_noticias.html

quick summary: The filming of the screen adaptation of the crime novel Oxford Murders by Argentinian author Guillermo Martínez is to be started 22 January right here in good ol´OXF. The Director is Basque Alex de la Iglesia, and the lead star will be Elijah Wood, though mention was made of Gael García Bernal in an earlier interview with the Director (IMHO I prefer García, but well...). See the Oxford student paper the Cherwell for an interview with Martínez.

---
ELIJAH TRAS LOS PASOS DE VIGGO

Parece que los vínculos del cine español con los protagonistas de la saga de “El señor de los anillos” no cesa. Si primero fue Viggo Mortensen quién aceptó encarnar al mismísimo “Alatriste” en el exitoso film de Díaz Yanes, ahora parece que se confirma la presencia de Elijah Wood como protagonista en ”Los crímenes de Oxford”, la película que prepara en Londres el director vasco Alex de la Iglesia. Este ambicioso proyecto, producido por Tornasol Films , Estudios Picasso, Kevin Lauder (Gran Bretaña) y La fabrique des filmes (Francia), parte de la novela homónima de Guillermo Martínez, Premio Planeta en Argentina 2003, y se empezará a rodar, en inglés, el 22 de enero en la capital británica. Además del conocido actor estadounidense, el reparto de la película se completa con Jim Carter (“Shakespeare in love”), Julie Cox (“El viaje de Felicia”), el director y actor de culto Alex Cox (“Perdita Durango”) y el mítico John Hurt. Para su director la película es “el enfrentamiento de dos personas inteligentes, enamorados además de la misma persona. La acción es la lucha de diálogos y la confrontación de caracteres”. Podeis obtener información puntual, detallada y divertida sobre “Los crímenes de Oxford” en el blog que el señor De la Iglesia administra para la ocasión.

everyone said it would be hell...

2007-01-05T20:00:00.000Z

i´m referring here (in the blogpost title) to being alone in Oxford over Xmas. In fact, I found it to be quite splendid! I read a whole lot about things which have nothing explicitly to do with the Internet, had completely unscheduled time, and mostly didn´t see a soul. Of course there were still people around, since not absolutely everyone leaves, but for the most part one could go around rather anonymously. This is not to negate the good times I had when on one or two occassions I´d met up with friends. Rather, it is that it wasn´t "hell" after all. Rather, something close to heaven. One needs isolation from time to time, and it is so hard to come by, after all.
I must admit that I feel a strange mixture of anxiety when people return. Don´t get me wrong, I am happy to have seen those returning friends, find out how their holidays have been and such, and yet, the social animal who perceives herself to be on the outside does not look forward to the sense of clique-ish peer pressure which can arise.
Moments ago I´d wondered about who it was that said that "hell is other people". Googling I found www.brainyquote.com
No surprises, it was Sartre, they say. (jejeje).
My underscoring Sartre might come as a surprise, and make me seem misanthropic, when I´m not. Thing is, I do do my best work when I am left to my own devices, and at such times I experience people as "meddlesome", or just simply, a nuisance.
:-o

disfrutando de los Reyes (Magos)

2007-01-05T18:31:00.000Z

Aye, debería estar en España ahora mismo, disfrutando de la cabalgata... me encanta tantísimo el desfile del 5 de enero. Cuando la vida laboral ya ha empezado en el mundo anglosajón, el día 2 (o día 3, depende), las personas hispanoparlantes todavía están de vacaciones. Es más, se trata, a mi ver, de estar junto a buen@s amig@s, charlando y tomando una buena comida durante horas, etcétera. Pero, no puedo (aunque quiero, sin duda alguna) viajar más ahora (ya que estuve en Madrid durante algunos días en diciembre para asistir al Acto de Entrega de Titulos por la UC3M). Pero, así es.

--------
An explanation of (part of) the Spanish Xmas copied below, click-thru to the URL for more,:
http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/spanish-festivals/christmas-in-spain.htm

31st December - New Year's Eve is known as NocheVieja. It is a big celebration all over the country with street parties and special nights in hotels and clubs everywhere. Until midnight people tend to stay at home and on the stroke of midnight it is traditional to eat 12 grapes, one on each stroke of the clock to bring good luck for the new year. In Madrid and other main cities revellers congregate in the main square (Puerta del Sol in Madrid) and eat the grapes along with a celebratory bottle of cava then head out into the night until after sunrise.
1st January - A low key public holiday with plenty people sleeping off their excesses.

5th January - There are processions all over Spain this evening where sweets are thrown from the floats to all the people who come out to watch. Every town has its own variation such as in the Sierra Nevada where the Three Kings can be seen to ski down to the village.

6th January - This is the Feast of the Epiphany when the Three Kings arrived in Bethlehem. For Spanish children this is the most important day of the year when they wake up to find that Los Reyes Magos (the Three Kings) have left gifts for them in their house. Santa may leave them a token gift on 25th but the Three Kings are their favourites, especially Baltasar who rides a donkey and is the one believed to leave the gifts. During the day of 6th the Three Kings continue their good work and are seen distributing gifts to children in hospitals all over Spain.

7th January - The day after receiving their gifts children return to school, their parents go back to work and Christmas in Spain is all over for another year.

interesting if you´re a starving student, and even if you´re not...

2007-01-04T16:21:00.000Z

Software for Starving Students is a free collection of programs organized for students (but available to anyone). We've gathered a list of best-in-class programs onto one CD (one disc for OS X, one for Windows), including a fully-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more.

The software as at time/datestamp of this here blogpost:

Win

7-Zip
Ant Renamer
Audacity
Blender
BZFlag
Celestia
ClamWin
DeepBurner Free
Dia
Enigma
Eraser
Exact Audio Copy
FileZilla
Firefox
Freeciv
Gaim
GIMPShop
GLtron
GNU Chess
Icebreaker
Inkscape
Juice Receiver
KeePass
MozBackup
NVU
OpenOffice.org
Paint.NET
PDFCreator
Portable Apps
POV-Ray
PuTTY
SolarWolf
Spybot S&D
Stellarium
SuperTux
The GIMP Toolkit
Thunderbird
Tortoise SVN
Tux Paint
Tux Racer
Tux Typing 2
VLC
WinDirStat
Wink
winLAME
WinSCP
XAMPP
µTorrent

OS X

Acqlite
Adium
Audacity
Bleezer
Blender
BZFlag
Camino
Carbon Copy Cloner
Cashbox
Celestia
ClamXav
Crack Attack!
Enigma
FreeDMG
Freemind
Fugu
Genius
GLtron
HandBrake
ImageBurner
Monolingual
MozoDojo
NeoOffice
NVU
Pac the Man X
Platypus
POV-Ray
Seashore
Schoolhouse
Smultron
Thunderbird
Transmission
TypeTrainer4Mac
VideoLAN Client

what spain is & isn´t

2006-12-18T22:11:00.000Z

yesterday i met up with friends Joerg and Concha, and we spoke about i.a. the movie "Goodbye Lenin", and of how one of the things that surprised or struck me in the movie was the lengths the son went to in order to pull the wool over the eyes of his mother. using that phrase makes me seem critical, and it isn´t so. rather, i was struck that he went to all that trouble motivated by his love for her.

that then made me think of my conversation with Nasima, also this week. i mentioned how the first scene in the movie "love actually" is really enchanting (me encanta). the scene consists of people hugging and greeting one another. the accompanying voice-over tells us that we are watching an airport arrivals hall, and tells us that for all the usual lifelessness of airports, the one thing that is striking is the amount of love on display when you watch such scenes in a typical airport arrivals hall. anyhow, the consequence of remembering the latter is that now i have the song from the movie in my head, and it goes "Love is all around me, And so the feeling grows, Its written on the wind, Its everywhere I go".

to return to the topic of this blog then, what strikes me when in spain is how amazingly cariñoso my friends are here :)

---

the other day someone i don´t know, but am in e-mail contact with via a group, sent a message enquiring about travelling with a spanish airline. the person ended their message with "given the price of the ticket, will i end up sitting between a nun and a goat?" or some such. i felt deeply offended by this, and ended up telling the person that their notion of spanish society was completely outmoded. the latter somehow added fuel to a fire in the sense that when i returned from madrid on my previous visit, i was rather annoyed with how people were asking me whether i had drunk a lot of sangría and partied whilst here, as if thát was all that visiting spain should amount to. i also heard similar kinds of skewed views from other persons i´ve bumped into, and this does bother me, if only because it perpetuates a stereotype of a people. for i know spanish people who do really good work, and more than that, work extremely hard over here, so it is very annoying this generalised anglosaxon view that all spain is about is fiesta, sangría, and siesta.... 0kay, i´ll stop griping now...

that said, the other day i´d bought a copy of an anthology of essays dating to 2005 re the view of Spain from abroad. i haven´t read it yet :-)
speaking of buying books. today i bought "Los Fantasmas de Goya" which is the story underpinning the latest Milos Forman movie (see Jean-Claude Carriere, Milos Forman ); also "Entre la soledad y el amor" by Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Holiday reading :)
Love it!

besos, J

those "c" words

2006-12-10T21:04:00.000Z

there is a distinct difference in what the terms "liberal", "socialist", "democratic" (to name a few) can mean, depending on which part of the planet you happen to find yourself in, and also, depending on the linguistic-environment you find yourself in. i felt this often enough when living outside of anglosajonia (the English-speaking world).

i try to read both spanish and uk newspapers. this is so even though i do find (and have thought so in the past) that the papers here have that annoying mix of high-on-drivel and low-in-intelligence in the reporting. the english journalistic tradition is like that to be found in south africa, which is one of the less attractive aspects of the south african newspapers: too much navel gazing and not enough of an outward gaze + a level of analysis in the reporting which leaves much to be desired. "but this is what sells", you will tell me. "local content, local interest, etc". oh, think of it this way: when i was in madrid in 2000 i learnt more there about the goings-on in Africa by reading the El País, than I would have gleaned from a week´s worth of reporting from a local South African newspaper/daily. Go figure. Since then the South African newspapers have changed their editorial stance, but still there is a dearth of reporting on Africa in SA papers.

what is interesting is to see the euro-skepticism over here in the UK vs. my experience of the spanish newspaper view of the EU, where the stance is pretty much pro. In Spain, the EU is a given. In the UK it seems to be seen as a somehow necessary evil. In the UK the EU is like that relative you invite over to family functions if only to avoid that there be bad blood in the clan...

But switching then to a different medium but still news reports:

my sitting down to write this blog was prompted by my seeing news reports of Pinochet´s death. Yahoo.es newsfeed reads, variously "that the Fascist dictator has died"; "it is unfortunate that he has gone to his death without a conviction", etc. Switch to my Google newsfeed and The Guardian opines "the anti-communist dictator has died". At which point I go "huh?" For how could Pinochet have been anti-communist when Salvador Allende (the person he had overthrown) was a socialist? So, if you write it that way as The Guardian has, does this make Pinochet a good guy? As if to say "he was not just any dictator, cos that´s just baaaaaaaaad. no, he was anti-communist, so --say it with me now-- that makes him aaaaaaa gooooood guy." The other thing that was striking is that the newspaper goes on to assert that "Allende committed suicide" as if some indisputable fact. The journalist does not bother to add that the latter has been questioned by many, for many years after the 1973 coup. My point is not that I am pro-Allende, rather that there are these tiny opportunities, in day-to-day journalism, where one can educate the public, and write in a style so that you have a more critical citizenry. But no, rather, it is simpler to dish up everything as if uncontested fact.

so, considering other "c" words, and i don´t mean that word so often used in spain it has lost its meaning almost entirely: coño. nope, i am referring to Capitalism. much in the way in which one can have a heated argument in spain and still walk away not having ruined the friendship + still having your dignity intact, one is able to engage in talk about systems of belief etc. with the same kind of non-attachment. i will return to this point later, but first a detour into SL.

some weeks ago i wrote about my experiences in Second Life. i did mention then about the fencing-off of property which seemed prevalent. but more than that, i wondered about this tendency to suffer some punitive consequence if you expressed a more communal kind of ethos. ("what´s she on about" you wonder). i mean, quite simply, i´ve seen, the few times that i´ve been in SL, that if you go looking for freebies the scripts if clicked on tend to suggest that doing so will result in some loss of one kind or another. e.g. if only to explicate, click on that there freebie-like offer and the next you know you´ve lost all your gesture-scripts in your inventory. at first this may strike you as nothing unique; merely the usual kind of pranks one can find, etc. but why the need to punish s/one if they are looking for freebies? why should loafers and free-riders be punished? can´t they just be allowed to happily co-exist with the rest who are spending their linden dollars on s e x , gambling, or shopping? which brings me to another point. look at the popular events listing and what you can do is either s e x, gambling, or shopping. to which i responded "oh, great, i can shop`til i drop in SL! whoopee! (yawn. oh blah)". so i logged out of SL thinking that it was merely some digital instantiation of a capitalist ethic. yeah, let´s call it "EXTREME CAPITALISM". the fiscal equivalent of extreme sports!? hhhmmm. then i happen across a Fortune article on SL "No, Second Life is not overhyped: Is it a game? No. Is it a marketing opportunity? Yes, but who cares? What matters most is that it may point to the future of the Net, says Fortune's David Kirkpatrick."
I am a Fortune subcriber; have been for many years, and i like Kirkpatrick´s articles, but i am suitably sceptical whenever i see anything which proclaims or even whispers "it may point to the future of the Net". also, the business press, unlike the general press, can be brimming with intelligence while also behaving in a very lemming-like way.
Kirkpatrick writes "Yet Second Life may be more important, longterm,... because what it really may represent is an alternative vision for how to interact with information and communicate over the Internet...In Second Life everything you do is done in a social space, though you can get privacy if you want." He goes on to say that the web as we know it mimicks a print model, and that SL makes you realise what another vision of the web could look like. He continues "There's no reason why some version of a 3D world couldn't eventually offer as much functionality as we get today on the Web, and more....Every day more big companies turn their attention to this new medium, realizing that it really represents something new....But we're seeing something new and important. If you want to stay abreast of what's happening in tech, you need to get inside Second Life." Of course I don´t agree with that last statement. SL is not the whole picture, after all, w.r.t. what´s new in tech. also, who´s to know whether 3D worlds presages a view of digi life to come. it is too early to tell. but, if the social (+ other?) context is visualised, what does that entail for our notions of the "semantic web"? for, after all, isn´t the semantic web also very much text-driven and so resting, by proxy, in a print model?

what Kirkpatrick´s story made me think of is that it seems that CEO´s start to have some kind of SL presence, and so that if you want to really aprovechar (take advantage), it would be good if you could practice your "elevator pitch" for SL! I guess that would not be so difficult to emulate cf. to the virtual mechanics of getting spanked... which is what i last witnessed (yes, witnessed, not experienced) over there.

well, to return to the start of this posting re spots on the planet. i then, in a meeting, of a day, made mention of this extreme capitalism notion vis-a-vis SL, which, much to my surprise, resulted in some uncomfortable back-and-forth looks among the group i was in. i shan´t reveal whom i´d been talking to; that is not so important. rather, what seemed so clearly signalled was that to mention that c-word (capitalism) in this my english-speaking world, could end with you being branded with that other c-word (communist). that is how it seemed to me. then, the point after all, is that i could say the equivalent in a spanish-speaking context and that, for sure, i would not initiate a similar round of uncomfortable looks.

Conferences, dialectics, nomenclature, and jargon; and then mandarin again

2006-12-09T00:21:00.000Z

it is high time that i post a follow-up to the 6 december posting re the STAIR conference. but first some general notes/thoughts.

scatter cushions: these are those cushions that one scatters on sofas. they´re usually small, square, get in the way, take up most of the sofa space, etc. but lots of people have them. well, when i first arrived at oxford i remember attending lectures where students would then say and describe which particular school of thought they were focussing on in their legal studies. what struck me was that everybody sounded so súper-confident, throwing about jargonny words, many of which i did not understand, and some of which i´d never heard of before. but what was particularly striking was the confidence with which they spoke. but always when people start to use these incomprehensible-yet-used-so-often-hence-meaningless terms i have this image of scatter cushions being tossed about. one scatter cushion per term. i always sit there and think "i don´t have a clue what you´re saying. i know the words but they are meaningless. if i don´t know, do you know, really? or are these words like crutches that you use to prop yourself up with?" maybe this is the trap we all fall into at some point; or is something we should guard against. well, the latter came to mind during the conference during one particular talk. so.

one other meta-level comment is that i wondered how one-sided my reporting would be here. for, after all, i am interested in the papers based on where i am coming from with my own particular set of research questions and curiosities. my aim, then, in writing the blog is not to provide a comprehensive summary. pah! that to me would be pointless. quite possibly the reader would gain something, but the end-result would be some dry piece of writing, me thinks, with only a modicum of interest/value to me in the end. [and you are probably thinking: look, she has posted so late; probably she has been out drinking... well, no. in fact, my ebullience is due to a combination of cake, tea, some chocolate, and good conversation with friends. an event which ended some time ago.]

i´d already mentioned symptomology, which was Der Derian´s term used that day of the conference. what was striking was his distinction between real vs. artificial life. why "artificial"? i thought to myself. what does he mean to designate? artificial = virtual? if so. why can virtual not just be a different kind of real, instead of its being "artificial"? isn´t that increasingly our experience of online environments? that they become part of one´s reality; are different but still "real"? the latter is also what i felt with the talk on citizen journalism. the speaker spoke like someone outside of this world which was the object of study. maybe this was an academic requirement (some veil for distance which denotes then rigour). but all i was left with was an impression of voyeurism. and that can be friqui in some regard. but really, the talk became interesting only when the speaker, instead of maintaining this academic distance, in fact revealed some things about her personal behaviour and affinities, in the environments under study (that is some funny english for "en el ámbito bajo investigación" it seems to me. )

i enjoyed the talk by Paul A. Taylor. he´s a huge Zizek fan; even disported a t-shirt. well, I like Zizek´s work too. on 29-Mar-2003 i posted Zizek´s essay re the Iraq war on my then web site. it was funny, when listening to Paul A. Taylor, at some point he referred to "courtly love", but with his strong accent i didn´t quite get it the first time around and in my notes i´d written "courtney love (???)", which seemed out of place, but hey, the guy was stringing in a whole host of (post-modern) philosophers, so why not some indie music folks too? he´d said "Baudrillard had spoken of the loss of seduction." unlike in days-of-old the scenario of courtly love is lost. the image of courtly love being the guy waiting/pining underneath the balcony, waiting for his love to appear, and to finally be with her (but seldom is this satisfied, if ever). that the latter scenario entailed (a certain level of) seduction, but that all of this had been lost in the society we live in. i´d wanted to say to him "move to spain; you will think differently. just because courtly love has been lost in the english-speaking world, does not mean that it has been lost globally", since i´d recalled, in my chronicles of life in Madrid (sent via e-mail to friends i.e. not blogged), i had made mention of this tendency, this playfulness in both genders in potential romantic relationships. in, what i then termed "anglosajonia" (the anglo-saxon world), courting (if it exists even) is far more straightforward. anyhow, to not stray too far from the topic...
Taylor characterised the culture industry as pornographic and prudish, and art as being ascetic and unashamed, and that we have "a culture that can no longer think intelligently about symbols". [which reminds me of signifier vs. signified, and that i saw a post recently on the HUMANIST list that it is 100 years since Saussure´s seminal lectures, the Cours de Linguistique].

too many asides = picture of my brain :)

back to STAIR: the afternoon lectures on internet governance i enjoyed. some useful links and leaps made there. we´ll see where i go with that.

---

about the mandarin: since i wasn´t going home and working diligently on that each evening, i kept getting to the class the next day feeling that i knew a little bit less (cf. fellow classmates) as the course and days progressed. few things are as humbling as learning a new language. and i think this is especially so the more specialised one becomes, since being súper-comfortable in one´s (quite separate) academic domain, it is very humbling (and unfamiliar), this sense of feeling like a complete and utter idiot. yet, all was not lost. i could have given up, but didn´t, despite my knowing that i would progressively each day look like more of a fool whenever the teacher asked me to give answers to the questions she posed. aye, those characters/sinograms!

Claire, the teacher, said "the characters are like people´s faces you recognise, but you don´t always remember their names". yep, that would be a very accurate assessment. and yet, languages are about pattern recognition. so, after a while, being familiar with enough pattern pieces, i could start to see entire patterns. yet, it is difficult (i.e. not very useful) if you recognise the signifier, but forget what it signifies! even so, i think the big leap comes when you start to feel that knowing a language is useful. yes, one can always know this in theory, but the day you experience it, you instantaneously feel more motivated. so, what happens but that someone from Japan visits at the OII on thursday evening, and gives me her business card, where I am able to recognise two or so characters. and thát felt like real progress.

STAIR / OII conf - The Internet: Power and Governance in a Digitised World

2006-12-06T11:33:00.000Z

am at the abovementioned conf. and some notes on the keynote by Der Derian, which I would characterise as having been...

but first

rewind to my experience when attending the play on saturday "the ppl next door". 16 or 17 year old girl sitting behind me in the audience, comments on the music being played in the background as we wait for the play to start. it was that song by Ms Dynamite, and as I sit there tapping my feet she exclaims in the direction of her friend: "i love this song. my dad just loves it. it´s such a dad song!!!"

at which point i wondered whether i should stop tapping my foot, thus not showing my obvious enjoyment of the song.

ok, skip back to today:

I am at the above conf. so far so good. in my comment on Der Derian´s keynote i wonder whether i will sound like the 16/17 year old audience member on Saturday, when I say "Der Derian´s talk was such a baby boomer talk." It was, in effect, an academic talk (though that does not imply any inherent dryness) with a fair mixture of references characteristic of the liberal arts scholar, along with a fair number of pop culture references. key phrase for me: symptomology.

ok, i´ll log off now. i don´t like blogging and conferencing at the same time. or maybe it is something i need to get used to (????)...

mandarin: wo shi nan fei ren

2006-12-04T21:13:00.000Z

years ago, when i´d started with my undergraduate degree, i recall that in my first semester, all students studying languages had been sent a flyer for the mandarin course at UNISA. given my interest in linguistics, the ability to learn a language which was so different from that which i already knew, seemed entirely fascinating. the sad thing was that i didn´t have time to study yet another language, as it does take a considerable investment of time and effort, so i put that aim on the backburner, telling myself that someday i would get around to studying mandarin. then, some weeks ago i received notice of intensive one-week courses happening at the language centre here, one of them being mandarin. i signed up, and voilà. today I attended my first lesson. as we´d started, part of me sat there feeling pretty pleased with myself for finally having gotten around to acting on this desire. another part of me wondered "how many years will this take?" as i got to grips with my first few chinese pictograph characters. oh my goodness. how my head hurts! i am soooo attached to my latin alphabet i find, for i can easily remember the phonetic (pinyin) forms, and their significance, but oh, those characters! what helped greatly was that i was able to, more or less given fuzzy memory, transcribe the sounds phonetically.

what was really amusing was seeing video of a group of six year old Chinese kids learning the language in school, since one looked at them and thought "right now they know more than what i do". Even funnier, was that we learnt some helpful language learning technique from them: they made gestures to accompany the four tones. it seems so rudimentary and so disposable, but it does help if you wave your hand (horizontally; then 45 deg angle from left to right (acute accent) ; then in the shape of a "v"; and finally in a 45 deg angle from right to left (grave accent), but the accompanying gesture is more like a salute since the sound is short/abrupt) whilst attempting to emit the four tones.

i guess i´ll post an update by the end of the week...

Some useful URLs:

Oxford: Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

(pronunciation resource)

http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk

Mandarin Chinese Phonetics (Patrick Hassel Zein)

http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html

Writing Chinese Under Windows 2000 Professional/XP

http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/chinese_write.htm

btw: the image above represents "I am South African" in pinyin

:-)

xmas party + web site redesign

2006-12-03T23:30:00.000Z

i´m just back from a graduate xmas party organised by fellow grads here at college. mulled wine, mince pies, stollen, and xmas pudding. nice. (thanks Yaqoob). also especially nice to see some friends, since i haven´t seen many of them for some time due to my having kept a rather low profile (read for that, studying).

---

this weekend i had the idea that it was time to change my web site, and i did so, but only for the homepage, and now, given the resultant/current disjunct between the now-changed homepage, and the rest of the site, the poor thing, it looks even more neglected than it did prior to the weekend. usually the homepage elements are key in my deciding what the rest of the site should look like. so, though i´ve changed the picture, and the banner, and repositioned some textual elements, i am still not happy with the end result...there is a decided lack of coherence in the design, but i´m not sure exactly what it is that i want to change. hhhmmmm.

the &c

2006-12-03T12:56:00.000Z

yep, i left that out in the previous posting. it´s a mixed bag, really.

for one, england always feels familiar, much like the netherlands, because of the historical/colonial links with south africa. how this expresses itself would be place names, surnames, and products (or brands) that are the same. all so familiar.
place names: claremont, worcester, mowbray
surnames: i see my mom´s maiden surname (Pearce) a lot. and then also Phillips, though not so much. Phillips was my maternal grandmother´s surname. She was Emily Phillips. Well, to digress, judging by grandparental distribution, I am (in no particular order):
25% German-with-Dutch-ancestry
25% Indigenous South African
25% Irish
25% Indigenous Australian
oh, but what a silly little matter of mathematics this seems to be. how neat. if only it were so simple.

products: marmite, bisto, weetabix (except in SA it was called Weetbix), worcestershire sauce,...

--

anyone know how/where to get a copy of the song that Tom Waits sings in the Roberto Benigni movie "The tiger and the snow"? funny thing is i was reminded of Tom Waits earlier this week when s/one i know was playing some music that sounded like Tom Waits, and i then remembered how much i liked that song. i checked itunes, but ...nada. and today, on the cover of the El País magazine, there is the mug of Tom Waits.

--

On the same magazine cover there is a reference to Chavezlandia, which also reminds me of a story I´d seen earlier in the week, re the availability of "Hugo Chavez" dolls. I thought to myself then: I wonder if one could get one on eBay... Oye, porfa, no soy fan, ¿entiendes? Se trata más de un rasgo del mundo en que vivimos. The availability of these dolls is like some extreme expression (symptom) of the crazy world we live in.

the people next door &c

2006-12-03T12:20:00.000Z

last evening i went to watch a play at the O´Reilly Theatre here at my College (Keble). I´ve never been a big theatre buff. When in SA it always seemed like such a schlepp getting to the theatre - small productions in intimate little theatres aren´t the norm (well, especially not in Cape Town). So, on the one hand one´s options felt limited, and on the other the tickets were expensive, and it somehow invariably felt that you went to the theatre not because you had an overt interest in the dramatic arts, but mostly because going to the theatre was what the hip, educated set would do. In sum, you went "to be seen". Yawn. Well, this isn´t always so, but it was so often enough. And apologies to my theatre-loving and theatre-going friends in SA who might not agree with my assessment.

So, last night I went to watch "The People Next Door". It was a small play, and very very good, in the sense that the actors (all four of them) had a good command of their characters. They were convincing. The lead character was a fellow called "Nigel", and how interesting to see how thoroughly ensconced the actor was in being Nigel. So much so that, in one particular scene, where "Phil" intimidates "Nigel", who then goes into a nervous-fit-slash-temper-tantrum-slash-meltdown, you could see that the actor playing "Phil" seemed slightly astounded, and bemused, by "Nigel´s" antics, as if he´d not seen this - the force with which "Nigel" reacted - coming.
What makes for a serious topic, and something difficult to address (since we are still so "in the thick of things" and somehow we forget how to laugh at ourselves), was handled very well. The story has a good denouement (I won´t give the game away, of course!). Below, some additional info:

Name: The People Next Door
Tagline: A brilliant, shifting panorama of contemporary British life.
Host: The People Next Door - 8th Week O'Reilly
Type: Music/Arts - Performance
Time and Place
Start Time: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 7:30pm
End Time: Saturday, December 2, 2006 at 7:30pm
Venue: Keble O'Reilly Theatre
Contact Info Phone: 01865305305

Description
Set in a council-flat staircase in a big English city, it charts what happens to the more-or-less friendly relations among the residents – confused half-Asian Nigel with his history of mental health problems, unhappy 15-year-old kid Marco and feisty Scottish granny Mrs Mac – when their peace is invaded by a psychopathic plain-clothes cop called Phil, determined to get results in the war on terrorism. In next to no time, fragile Nigel is down at the local mosque under instructions to spy on the Muslim community, and discovering there’s more to the Koran than meets the eye; Marco is worried that Nigel’s new faith will turn him into a fundamentalist; and Mrs Mac is prowling the stairs with a poker, under the impression, cultivated by Phil, that Nigel is using his sheltered flat as a bomb-factory.

And the result is a brilliant, shifting panorama of contemporary British life, in which terrific one-liners zip around the stage like unintentional fireworks unleashed by the pressure of the situation, and each character’s psyche becomes a comic battleground between Phil’s rampant Daily Mail world-view on one hand, and – on the other – a dose of practical common sense, oddly boosted by the emergent liberal folk-wisdom of Britain’s soap-and-chat-show daytime television culture.

Nigel - David Bernard Snower

Phil - Tim Hoare

Marco - Athel Hodge

Mrs. Mac - Amy Porteous

Director - Corinne Sawers

Assistant Director - Alev Scott

Producer - Isabel Ridley

leonard cohen tiene la culpa

2006-12-02T23:52:00.000Z

this morning i stepped out in search of a book for a friend. i stopped by at the bookstore to enquire. after very diligent searching on the part of the shop assistant, i went away with some useful info. on my way out of the store it just so happens that there was a copy of leonard cohen´s latest anthology of poems (book of longing) published in May of this year. I leafed through the pages -- he writes so well after all -- and read some beguiling verses. and the more I read, the more the tears started to well up in my eyes. And I stood there, not caring too much that I was almost-crying in public. Almost-crying, in public, in England. I would think that´s a no-no. But then again, I´m in Oxford. Which is something different altogether.

--

this reminds me of what i wrote after my recent visit to spain in early-November. i had had a falling-out with a friend. yes, a friend, not a boyfriend, nor partner, nor even anything conceptually close to that. and it wasn´t so much a misunderstanding that we´d had, but rather a disagreement, unfortunately to the extent where the friendship had fallen apart.

and i wrote later:

after, i went to the uni; made my way to the computer lab, and sat there working. but the tears welled up, despite my efforts to prevent them from flowing. the lab assistant noticed; but i was in spain, and it was okay for me to cry in public. no-one would be too disturbed by that.

haciendo las maletas / packing one´s bags

2006-11-28T22:45:00.000Z

first off, thanks to "anon" who posted their recommendation re RefWorks. In fact, I had registered for RefWorks some weeks prior to attending the EndNote training (I had registered for said training within the first days that I´d arrived here,but that is merely an interesting anecdote). Be that as it may, I wanted to use/experience the utilities available, so as to compare, etc. You already know where that little venture led me. Suffice to say that I have since started to use RefWorks, which is useful especially if your home institution is a partner site. Also useful even if your home institution is not a partner site. But I haven´t used it extensively (yet).

okay, "haciendo las maletas": last week i had a grad seminar where i was expected to put my half-baked research thoughts on display. doing the latter was a bit out of the ordinary for me, since in the stuff i´ve done thusfar, people have always left me, more or less, to my own devices. this is not to say that i didn´t have feedback, nor inputs, etc. in the past. of course, i´ve had, and i´m glad to have worked with the persons i have worked with, but to date i´ve always been further along in my thought process before having to give them a public airing (okay, semi-public, since it was still in-house). when we´d arrived to start the DPhil, Max, one of our 2nd year DPhil comrades, had said "interdisciplinary research is hard". bueeeeeno. he was right. but as i spoke on friday something dawned on me: one´s tendency, in formulating a dphil problem worthy of doctoral endeavour, is to try and bring together somehow one´s varied interests of the past years, or all of one´s academic training, but maybe part of the trick is to decide what to bring along and what to leave behind. almost like packing one´s bags when moving/relocating. actually, it is more like relocating countries, since if you´re moving with-in country you can always take more stuff with you, or go back easily enough to fetch the things you´ve left behind. not so with moving to another country, in that you are forced to decide what should stay and what should go. similarly, in research this is so. or should be so. you can´t pack in everything you´ve learnt, so what to leave behind???? seems obvious, no? the irresistible thing for me is that there are definite recurring threads which i would want to weave into this doctoral endeavour, but it isn´t clear if that would be "too much", or result in a work which is "too broad, with not enough depth", etc. oh, no, i start to sound like that boring person´s blog i´d happened across last year sometime. it was a person who wrote about the daily ins-and-outs of their doctoral research. did not make for compelling stuff, truth be told...

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where is my muse? ¿dónde está la musa? Me ha abandonado. Pues, este tema se trata de lo siguiente: durante mi estancia en Madrid, estaba escribiendo mensualmente (casi), reportajes de mi vida como madrileña. Me mudé a Inglaterra y... nada. No creo que es culpa del ambiente, el tiempo, etcétera. Me acuerdo bien de las maneras en que ocurrieron las ideas, las frases, las escenas graciosas, de las cuales que apunté al final para mis lectores. Y ya. Por cierto hay costumbres por aquí que son muy distintas de las de mi país, o de las de España, pero me muero un poco con la falta total de ganas de apuntarlas. Pueda que, al fondo, tener que ver, no con los rasgos del país por dónde estoy, sino con el cambio total de mi punto de vista del mundo -- lo que ha ocurrido el verano pasado. De veras, este cambio es algo que lamento, pero bueno, el mundo cambia, y nosotr@s mism@s cambiamos también, bien sea por nuestra voluntad o no.

does it really have to be this complicated?

2006-11-20T23:16:00.000Z

i last week started to use EndNote, and though I can appreciate that this software tool will save me lots of time in the long-run (and has done so for those who swear by it), i walked away last week from some training, and subsequent self-directed online training, asking myself "why, from a usability point-of-view, does the learning curve have to be so steep?" in learning to use the software, my level of irritation was such that i actually felt insulted. seriously.

well, we can say "it is a new type of system, so its modus operandi is foreign to me". but it isn´t that. did the manufacturers just anticipate that brainy types would use their software, and so the sheer unnecessary complexity of the software design wasn´t ever fully considered? i´m baffled.

there are some good self-help resources online. for instance, see
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/tutorials/endnote/print-endnote-introductory-tutorial.html

but what struck me in the above, were the exceptions, the "avisos", the things not to do so that you would get the software to effect the desired outcome in your research document.

e.g.

"You should only use a single EndNote library for each Word document you work on. It is okay to use the same EndNote library for two or more Word documents, but do not use two or more EndNote libraries for a single Word document"

"When entering a corporate author in EndNote, you must follow it with a comma. Otherwise, EndNote attempts to treat it as an individual author name."

"If you need to add page numbers to a book citation, click anywhere in the in-text citation (the background of the citation should turn grey to show it is selected), then from the Tools menu, Endnote, select Edit Citation(s), or use the button on the EndNote toolbar.
You must add the page numbers to the Suffix field. The Pages field is only for footnote styles."

hhhhhmmmm. when reading the above, it became clear that i had reached my fill of endnote training for the day.

what´s the moral of the story (it isn´t just an aimless rant, after all):

web-based services have evolved to a point where they generally have greater ease-of-use than standalone software. so much so that it seems to me that, as a consequence, the bar has been raised by web-software developers, in the usability stakes, for 3rd party software development. this has been to the extent where stand-alone appplications will have to be developed with the user, not only in mind, but uppermost, if they are to remain current (i.e. in business). with daily use of the web, user-expectations vis-a-vis how applications serve them, are evolving to the point where 3rd party software vendors will not get away with foisting a so-so designed software product into the marketplace.