Salsa Scoop

What folks are saying about the Missoula 501 Tech CLub

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06:03 PM Aug 20, 2008 - 0 comments permalink

Activism and the Games

The quadrennial -- or biennial, now that the summer and winter games are staggered -- ~~hypocrisy~~ irony of the "Olympic Movement" formulation from the mouthpieces of global capital is probably not actually any more finely described by Beijing's turn on the stage than by any other ruthless global hegemon's. Hey, Mary Lou Retton was sticking vaults and selling breakfast cereal while Central America was crawling with death squads.

But China has brought renewed hand-wringing from the guardians of right-thinking about the wrongness of bringing politics into a "Movement" so palpably political from the get-go, and so explicitly marked in its most memorable moments -- Jesse Owens in Berlin, the Blood in the Water match -- by political valences.

And then, of course, there's this:

Today's not the calendar anniversary of Tommie Smith and John Carlos's famous protest, but it's almost (as of this writing) the very moment of the men's 200 meter finals, the event that put them on the podium to deliver it.

Here's the Beeb on that Olympic moment in that pregnant year:

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10:28 AM Aug 20, 2008 - 59 comments permalink

DIA Midwest Office Opening

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." -Bertold Brecht

It's now been three and a half years since DemocracyInAction and I got together -- three and a half years of change and growth and learning on the fly.

We got to thinking ... why not try out a long-distance thing?

So I'm excited -- and, yeah, a little nervous -- to announce that next week, yours truly will shake the Beltway dust off his heels and open up DemocracyInAction Midwest. (That name could be a little snappier. Suggestions?)

DIA Midwest will be based out of lovely Bloomington, Indiana, conveniently located where someone smarter than I can study something I don't understand while I do stuff like this:

(And of course, the ol' hobby blog.)

What does this mean for Salsa users in the Midwest?

It turns out that most of what I do I could easily do from a decent broadband connection on Io, so it'll be an evolutionary rather than revolutionary change in my own daily schedule.

But DIA Midwest -- that is, me, in my den -- will obviously be turning user focus towards groups in the region, along the lines of our existing field offices in San Francisco, New York, and Montana.

And dang if Bloomington isn't right in the middle of the action:

That's a whole new territory to learn.

So you'll see me stalking the conferences, mailing lists, happy hours and blogs from Nashville to Chicago, from Hockeytown to the Show-Me State ... especially when basketball season rolls around.

Trepidation notwithstanding, I'm looking forward to it.

D.C. is not bereft of charm but it's a company town, and even if my never-changed Washington (state) license plates attest another state of mind, I've somehow managed to keep my hearth in the capital for nine of the last eleven years. Helpfully, that game-changing global communications infrastructure we're always nattering on about here has sprouted up in that time ... so you can change your longitude without changing all your friends.

Just the same, everyone needs a new beginning now and again.

I'll see you on the other side of the drive.

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11:47 AM Aug 19, 2008 - 29 comments permalink

Net Neutrality research project

If you're particularly engaged on the net neutrality issue -- or if you're not at all, but interested in new models for online deliberation -- the National Science Foundation-funded Deliberative E-Rulemaking Project (DeER) at the University at Albany (SUNY) and Texas Tech is "test[ing] a new model for citizen input on proposed rules and regulations by federal agencies. We are recruiting people to participate in an online message board discussion on a possible FCC network neutrality regulation." The project is supposed to begin in late August, but you can sign up for it right now. More here.

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03:45 PM Aug 12, 2008 - 18 comments permalink

Chelsea's Back

And for a moment, all is right in the world.

Drop her a note if you feel so inclined.

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10:24 AM Aug 11, 2008 - 0 comments permalink

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