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Original to: http://anand.ly/articles/in-search-of-a-digital-philosophypublished in The International Herald Tribune, w/e July 3-4, 2010.In search of a digital philosophyby Anand GiridharadasMUMBAI — The world saw the goal clear as day, but the referees did not.And in this age of camera-embedded everything and crowd-sourced truths,the error of the few startlingly prevailed over the cameras and theeyes of the many.So, despite an apology days later from Sepp Blatter, the head of theWorld Cup’s governing body, FIFA, and a promise to re-examine thetechnology question, England never got its second goal againstGermany last weekend.What might have been had it entered the second half with the psychicbuoyancy of an equal? Fans and commentators simmered: How can thesemultibillion-dollar games shun a technology contained in the averagecellphone? Why not embrace the inevitable?But another way of seeing FIFA’s approach is as a rare and revealing actof resistance in relentlessly digitizing times.Technology is of human making. But these days we contort ourselves toorganize life around the tools and not the other way around. If thetechnologists sell always-on broadband, we end up being always on. Ifthey invent a new gadget, we line up to buy it before knowing its uses.If e-mail can reach us anywhere, we assume that it should.FIFA’s digital skepticism is a notable exception to this feature-ledculture. In a noteworthy statement issued three months before theWorld Cup, the association offered more than Luddism to explain itsreticence. It spoke of a game with certain deep essences that it wishedto preserve and argued that technology threatened them.High among these is universality; the game played in a Mumbai slumlooks like the game played at the World Cup, with many of the same rules,rhythms, rites. Digitizing elite contests would, FIFA suggested backthen, break the universality. Constant replay would make the elitegame choppy and eternally interrupted, like basketball. Thenarrative continuity that defines the sport would disappear. Andthe clarity of automated officiating might starve fans ofopportunities for impassioned “debate,” the statement said.FIFA was making a point that is becoming hard to dispute: To digitizesomething is not merely to bring efficiency to it. It is also in manycases to change it in a fundamental way, to give it a new essence.To digitize sport, book-reading, dating — to do any of these things istransformative. The transformations can be good, bad or both.Whichever it is, digitization brings hard choices about the essencesof particular human activities, and what of them we will negotiateaway for the expediency of technology. Yet we often stumble upon thechoices rather than choose them.A new digital philosophy could serve as a guide, but philosophersare seldom technologists and technologists seldom philosophers.Those good at “why” and those good at “how” rarely talk. So many morephilosophers have waded into the questions raised by bio-manipulationthan those posed by the more immediate dilemmas of becoming digitalpeople.(...)<middle part filtered out as it is full of insufferably conventional triteabout how ICT has wipped out the social and invalidated the cat's subwaypass in the process...> (you can always read the original)(...)For now, FIFA has reminded everyone that the offerings of technologyare not inevitabilities but choices, and that we don’t have to live innew ways just because they have been invented. It remains possible todetermine first the kind of life you wish to lead, and only then ask howmagnificent and hazardous arrays of ones and zeroes can be put to thetask of making that life come true.

Hi Nettimers,After their book on Google (see N3 underneath) the Italian IppolitaCollective is embarking on a study of the social media (aka web 2.0, orwhatever). They have written this as a starting shot. Comments welcome.Cheers from a very silent Groningen, patrizio & Diiiinooos!(in the pipe-line: update to the Google book)-------------------------------------------------------The situation with the social media - a position paper"Open is not Free, and publishing is not the same as to makepublic"Many years have passed since the Ippolita Collective started making adistinction between 'opening up to the free market', as is propounded bythe gurus of the Open Source movement, and the freedom the Free Softwaremovement posits as the bedrock of its vision of the digital world (N1):"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price" (N2).Open Source as a concept is solely devoted to finding out the best methodsto spread a product in an open manner, where open is to be understoodpurely within the logic of the market. The hacker attitude, based on playand sharing amongst peers, has been co-opted therein by an approach thatis based on the logic of exploitation of time and labor with profit as thedriving motive, and not individual and/ or collective welfare.Following upon "Open does not mean free", Ippolita's inquiry into Google -the very embodiment of an attempt to reach total hegemony "on all theworld's knowledge" - proceeded from the same approach (N3). Which is toshow how the logic of 'Open', combined with a Californian philosophy ofacademic excellence, saw in the motto "Don't be evil", the perfect excuseto let itself be corrupted and enter the service of 'abundancecapitalism', the illusory fast-forward capitalist belief inthe-sky-is-the-limit growth (cf. the 6th tenet of the Google gospel: "Youcan make money without doing evil" (N4). The catch phrase (and trap) is"more, bigger. faster" - as if that is always better by default. "TomorrowIs Another Day", and it's gonna be a Better Day as there is the faithglowing in the bushes, a faith embodied by the "I am feeling lucky"button. The message is that this is a technology that is good bydefinition, as it originates from impartial scientific research, and thesatisfaction of all our needs and desires is there, at once, and withouteffort - just a mouse-click away.Unfortunately, this pretense of 'totalitarian informationism' is lessridiculous than would appear at first sight. Because if one would come tothe conclusion that there is actually nothing left to produce, andespecially that unlimited growth is a perfect delusion, and that even inthe digital world, then the rush toward the next gadget as dazzling as itis useless might well petter out. A collapse of growth would be the nextthing. Then a spark of consciousness could arise in our exhausted world,and instead of driving full speed towards the abyss with the loudspeakersturned on to the max, we might well start looking around us, and look ourneighbors into the eyes, and talk to each other, share and exchange whatwe need, and imagine and build something that is really meaningful.Well, not so. Once this gigantic technological machine was put in placewith the help of data-centers, first class brains and open source code -those being rapidly foreclosed with NDAs (N5) - the need for contentbecame pressing. Any content. content that was as cheap as possible, orbetter still: for free. The industrial production of absolute trash couldtake flight, with zero costs and super-profits for the unknowncelebrities, but how?Meanwhile the Net was becoming mainstream. Slowly, broadband connectionsbecame less asymmetrical (mostly thanks to subsidies and deficit fundingby the public sector aimed at closing 'the digital gap' - yet another formof corporate welfare …) Connectivity fees have gone down (but not nearlyenough) and upload volumes have increased. And here comes the solution toall our problems: transferring all users data (that is what is stocked intheir PCs, laptops, mobile phones, cameras, etc.) as low-hanging fruits ofthe opening of the 'free market', that is to publish everything, and makeit accessible to anyone. Here we see what must be the most powerful'Weapon of Mass Distraction' ever deviced (N6), or how to spreadsatisfaction amongst the various users of so-called 'Web 2.0' services whoharbor an irrepressible urge to post, tag, comment, or link pictures,videos, tweets, SMSs, being it their own of those of their 'friends', inthe wide ocean of the social networks. And why would that belong to themsince it is hosted by somebody else: FaceBook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter,Netlog, Youtube - you name it. Users are over-joyous and excited to haveon their desk and in their pockets the very latest expensiveself-snitching device, which is forever online and includes an embeddedGPS. Thanks to the latter, they'll soon be able to go shopping and leavetheir credit cards at home, so that 'those-who-should-be-in-the-know' doindeed know what pleases us, where we are, what we buy, and what we aredoing, with whom. Or whatever.And so, welcome to the present! But Unlike those times when Ippolita wasshouting in the desert of geek enthusiasm that it might be preferable not to 'put everything on Google", since allowing for this marks the beginningof technocratic domination, now there are many voices raised against'social networks'. They stand accused of stealing people's private life,and of being the outcome of a bogus revolutionary ideology. Maybe theInternet itself is a social movement, but then a very elitist one, andriddled with contradictions (N7). As some influential commentators havenoted, FaceBook in particular has a business model based on 'radicaltransparency' (N8). It is thus in the very nature of Facebook to publisheverything, period, as can be seen from its latest policy developments(N9). It should also be remembered that Facebook's sponsors are members ofthe 'Paypal Mafia', that they maintain close links with civil and militaryintelligence services, and that they support extreme right-winglibertarian politicians (to wit, these same people thought that Bush Sr.was a 'moderate') (N10). There is even somebody at Harvard who dares tomention from the height of his chair that there might be something like asocial media bubble, and that has also economic aspects. Nobody has yetbeen able to prove that social media do push sales of personalizedproducts thanks to targeted advertising (N11). Yet even fans are startingto fret about Facebook's ambitions (N12).Now something worse is happening to Facebook than a few concrete, butfairly minority propositions (The Suicide Machine for mass profiledeletion, the Diaspora Project for building a 'truly free' social network,as well as complaints and petitions filed with various regulatory bodies -who are famously unable even to regulate themselves …): the public startsbeing restive for real (N13). It is exactly the same as in "opening thecode does not mean to make it free", and "publishing does not mean to make(it) public". Rather the opposite, in fact. But for all practicalpurposes, now, let's continue with Facebook. There we see the exactopposite of 'making public', as everything that gets posted becomes theexclusive property of the Facebook enterprise - just read (again) theterms of use. But how is that possible? What does mean "all what ispublished does not automatically become public"? Well indeed so. In almostall instances, anything happening on a 'Web 2.0' site turns into amultinational corporation's private ownership. What happened is that youhave actually worked, for free, for companies which seek to make moneywithout you knowing about it, using personalized adds which contaminateyou more and more. Don't any longer complain you didn't know!The current situation is bad. But that is an old story. we have not endedup in this situation out of the blue. If you have been following thediscussions in the tech world, on iPhone then iPad, Android, Windows7,Facebook and Chatroulette, you'll only wonder about the bottomless naivetyof net-gurus, tech-fans, and men-on-the-street alike. And you can alsohear a bitter chortle, coming from far away Italy (but our own home, atleast as 'forma mantis' - mindset) where videocracy rules against ourwishes, and where at least it is entirely obvious that our rights will notbe protected by the so-called democratic institutions, and that it won'tbe the ministrations of some charitable, progress-oriented multinational,that will bestow upon us, free of costs, an open spirit and the benefitsof freedom.What was true yesterday is today even more. And we are certainly not thefirst one to state that one must be able to imagine one's future in orderto understand one's present, while remembering one's past. And this (weadd) should take place within the process of creating a collectivehistory. Memory is a collective device, as nothing ever repeats itselfagain in the same form, and yet the differences look very much alike, andyesterday's bland broth, hardly stale today, might well be dished outto-morrow under the guise of a radical innovation. If it happens that ourmental world is mostly constituted by what adds, television, and such likeoutfits are telling us, and which finds its concretization in the 'freedomto choose' between 70.000 different iPhone apps (if you have reallynothing better to do, you could go at it: at the rate of ten a day, itwill merely keep you busy for the next twenty years), or the opportunityto have more than 500 'friends' on Facebook (one dinner each will barelyenable you to meet every one of them once every two years), well then,maybe be didn't stress enough the necessity to desire and to imaginesomething better after all.It may be totally useless, yet writing is fun - and even enjoyable. Towrite makes us feel good, even if it is an activity replete withmisunderstandings and difficulties, and it is tiring to boot. It is timesnatched from the necessity otherwise to earn a living. We enjoy imaginingescape lines, and we try to express them, to device tools to fulfill ourdesires. To write is to make those available to a public made up ofindividual people, yet without making use of a proprietary megaphone ownedby some intrusive multinational corporation.There are many of us in the same situation: we don not want to'co-operate', we do not want to be part of the social media'scrowdsourcing drive. But we are not part either of 'Multitude' or'Empire', which are categories out of hegemonic thought identifyingclasses and interests and organizing the struggle that in any case ends upwith (new) oppressed and (new) oppressors. It's not difficult to see theparallel between an analysis of the network as a multitude and the theoryof NetWar. Liberal-fascist NetWar theoreticians - especially John Arquilla- are far closer to Negri-inspired social network leftists for comfort.Both parties' basic idea is the necessity to conquer hegemony. Whether onthe right or on the left, the issue the reticular space of networks islooked at from a polemical perspective: war and conquest. And even thoughthey may look to stand at opposite pole, they share the same way ofthinking (N14). The network analysis terminology itself, including thatof social networks, is heavily militarized. And if you look at the basiccomponents computers are made of, you see metal-based semiconductors theraw material of which is sourced from territories engulfed in a permanentarmed conflict because of them, eg. Central Africa. The globalization ofmarkets means foremost the globalization of exploitation: our ergonomicinstruments are produced by armies of industrial workers in Asia, and morespecifically in China, a country where workers have to sign a legaldocument affirming they did not commit suicide in the factory. Well,thanks for letting us know, guys! And meanwhile, as we are purchasing thelatest in useless gadget technology, we might enjoy the thought that a fewrachitic trees have been planted to compensate for the discharge of CO2their manufacture entailed. Alas, also green capitalism is and remains adaft pipe-dream, like each and every productivist ideology.Despite our own immersion in this technology-driven world we would like totry to maintain some distance and to write an ethnography of sorts ofsocial media. Not about how these work (there are handy manuals to thateffect), but about how we have ended up into this, and how to exercisesome influence, by injecting the heterogenous, chaos, and seeds ofautonomy into them. We too are involved and compromised (like everybodyelse, in matters of ICT), but that does not mean that one has to give into everything without consideration. It is from out a collectiveexperience that individual inferences are made possible about analienation process that finds its origins in the inner self. The savagesare us. We need a defiantly subjective viewpoint and not the pretense ofobjectivity of an outside observer. Fortunately, the myth of academicobjectivity only survives in the second rate regions of scientificvulgarization. More than a century ago, so-called hard sciences acceptedrelativism, it is now time for the 'human sciences' to do the same in adetermined way. What we need is radical relativism, we need to takedistance from ourselves in order to understand what we are doing, to giveour actives a concrete signification in order to communicate it in apublic domain that needs to preserved, build again, and relentlesslyrenegotiated. To use Hanna Harendt's terms: we need to develop a discoursethat defines our action in research (N15).So we have already a few ideas. If you have ideas too, do tell us!Q&D translation by Patrice RiemensGroningen 11 July 2010_______________________________Notes(N1)Ippolita, Open non è free - Eleuthera, Milano 2005 (free download athttp://ippolita.net/onf - in Italian)(N2)cf. GNU project/ definitions www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html(N3)Ippolita, The Dark Face of Google (original Italian 2007) free pdf ofthe original Italian:http://ippolita.net/google/ English translation (serialized onNettime-l, 2009, without notes):http://ippolita.net/files/dark_side_of_google.pdf(N4) http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html(N5)Non Disclosure Agreement, the corporate world's weapon of choice tocompete in the 'knowledge economy'.(N6)Critical Arts Ensemble, cf. http://critical-art.net(N7)N+1 magazine (New York):http://nplusonemag.com/internet-as-social-movement(N8)Danah Boyd, "Facebook and radical transparency":http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/14/facebook-and-radical-transparency-a-rant.html(N9)Check out the evolution of 'privacy' on Facebook (changes in defaultprofile settings over time) on:http://www.mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/(N10)http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook (TomHodgkinson, "with friends like these …")(N11)Umar Haque, "The Social Media Bubble":http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/03/the_social_media_bubble.html(N12)Robert Scoble, aka Scobleizer:http://scobleizer.com/2010/04/22/facebook-ambition/(N13)Buzzmachine: Confusing 'a' public with 'the' public:http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/05/08/confusing-a-public-with-the-public/(N14)cf. Alexander Galloway & Eugene Thacker 'The Exploit' (2007) for afirst draft isn this direction(N15)Hanna Ahrendt The Human Condition (1958)

Dear FriendsYou called for a Libel Reform Bill – and the Government haslistened.On Friday, Justice Minister Lord McNally said the Government haslistened to the 52,000 supporters of the Libel Reform Campaign and hasmade a “firm commitment to action” to protect freedom of speechand the public interest with a bill to be published in the New Year.The Bill will be the first attempt from a Government in more than acentury to undertake fundamental reform of our libel laws.It’s an incredible success for our campaign – and it’s thanksto your support.The announcement was made during the second reading debate of LordLester’s Private Members Defamation Bill. You can watch the debateas it happened here:http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=6412and there is a round up of coverage and reaction to the news here:http://www.libelreform.org/news/465-9th-july-2010-government-announces-libel-reform-billBut we don’t know how radical the Government’s bill will be, andwe don’t know whether it will ensure that writers like Simon Singh,NGOs like Global Witness, or medical professionals like Dr PeterWilmshurst won’t face libel actions in the future. That’s why weneed your continued support.Many of you have been emailing and Tweeting about this already –please do continue to spread the word. Over the next three months weneed to double the signatories to our petition so new MPs know howimportant this issue is. We have a lot of work to do together to makesure the Government brings forward a bill that really will make thelaw fairer and give greater protection to free speech. Bloggers,science writers, NGOs and small publications still face threats andbankruptcy under the current laws, as illustrated by two bloggers,Alex Hilton and John Gray, who are at the High Court in London todayfighting to have a libel case against them thrown out.You can follow the case here http://www.jackofkent.blogspot.comBestSile and Mikehttp://www.libelreform.org

Institute of Network Cultures NewsThe Institute of Network Cultures wishes you a great summer! We are closed from the 26th of July and back on the 16th of August.In this newsletter you can read more about:- 2nd Video Vortex Reader- Culture Vortex, public participation in online collections- Conference the Economies of Open Content | 10 till 12 November- Society of the Query weblog expands into a collaborative venture- Conference CPOV Wikipedia Research Initiative in Leipzig | 25 – 26 September- Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society, by Vito Campanelli- Video Vortex Conference in Amsterdam | 11 – 12 March 2011- Conference E-Publishing | May/June 2011- Create-IT applied research centre/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Second Video Vortex ReaderFollowing the success of the first Video Vortex Reader, The Institute of Network Cultures is buzzing with activity preparing for the second Video Vortex Reader, a publication dedicated to examining significant issues that are surfacing around the production and distribution of online video content. An open call for contributions went out in early March, with selections being made early June. Currently we are drawing together other inspiring authors to add insightful contributions to the reader and thinking through the organization of the texts, with works by scholars, artists and curators.Sub-topics and themes: video activism, ethics and politics of online video, curatorial environments, artistic practice with online video, open video, open content and open source, online video and aesthetics, online video in asia, and video art, institutional collections and online access. Expect another creative, critical, insightful and intelligent intervention into various aspects of online video.If you have ideas about possible contributors and exciting essays, written by you or others, please contact Rachel Miles (rachel[at]networkcultures[dot]org). The deadline of the final versions will be in September)The first reader, Video Vortex Reader: Responses to Youtube, is available as a free pdf on the INC website:http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/videovortex/More information:http://networkcultures.org/videovortex/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Culture Vortex, public participation in online collectionsIn the public and cultural sectors, collection holders have raised questions concerning the online distribution of creative material. Until the present moment, research and funding programs have focused mainly on the digitalization and licensing of large collections. On the side of the institution, the professional is wondering: How do I involve the audience in my online collections? And how do I inform the artists about the possibilities of sharing their works online? On the other side, artists are unsure about the added value of offering their works online.The main question this Culture Vortex study (RAAK publiek program) seeks to answer are:How can an active audience be involved in online cultural material? How can an elaborate network culture be facilitated, in which participants will share, describe, review, tag, reuse or otherwise interact with the cultural works?The Netherlands Media Art Institute in collaboration with MediaLAB Amsterdam and INC organized an expert meeting within one of the three program lines; Public 2.0.A selected group of experts from various domains: artists, lecturers/ educators, researchers, curators got together to answer questions like: What needs do users have in relation to the collection? Is there need for active user participation and how can this be fulfilled?Research that has been initiated in order to answer some vital questions related to the media art collections of NIMk and the groups of users that use this collection, can be found here:http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/culturevortex/files/2010/07/Report-Culture-Vortex_Program-Line-Public-2.0.pdf (credits: Janneke Kamp and Lorena Zevedei)Partners in this two year program are: INC, MediaLAB Amsterdam, The Netherlands Media Art Institute, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Amsterdam Stadsarchief, Virtueel Platform, VPRO, Urban Screens Association and IDFA.All the outcomes of this meeting can be found on:http://networkcultures.org/culturevortex/More information:http://networkcultures.org/culturevortex//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Economies of Open Content conference | 11 till 13 November 2010The Economies of Open Content conference critically examines the economics of access to and preservation of on-line public domain and open access cultural resources, also known as the digital commons. While these resources are often acclaimed for their low-cost barriers, accessibility and collaborative structures, critics decry that they undermine established cultural (proprietary) production without offering a viable business strategy of their own. Because the sustainability of these open content resources remains so unclear, this conference explores alternative revenue models and novel institutional structures that can fund and safeguard access to commons- based resources. What new hybrid solutions for archiving, preserving and granting access can create both viable markets and serve the public interest? How should we restructure the economic frameworks in which content producers and cultural archives operate? How can we open up innovative markets that serve the public interests in a competitive global 21st century information economy? This event seeks to connect researchers, theorists, economists and activists in order to analyze the political economy of Open Content and its consequences for the cultural sector.On the 11th of November there is pre-conference seminar: OVC Europe at Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum. Subjects are; open standards and their importance, video on Wikipedia and open video within education. On the 12th and 13th of November the conference will take at the Balie, Amsterdam. Conference themes are; Future of the Public Domain, Critique of the Free, Alternative Revenue Models, Materiality and Sustainability, Beyond the Starving Creatives and Open Access Resources.Participating institutions include the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, De Balie, Knowlegdeland, University of Amsterdam, New Media department and Institute of Network Cultures/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Society of the Query weblog expands into a collaborative ventureThe Society of the Query blog is looking forward to expanding its dialogic space to become a collaborative blog, in order to increase questioning and critical thinking around Web Searching. The collaborative research blog will include any content linked to the idea of search and research surrounding the topic of search. The research thread will be put out to everyone, hence anyone willing to contribute to the blog will be able to do so. Gathering the dispersed research on the topic will be a starting point to discover emerging themes, new and useful collaborations and critical areas that may result in a forthcoming event themes or other ventures. The targeted launch for the blog is 1 July 2010. For more information on the blog, and to start participating in the blog, contact srividya at srividya[at]networkcultures[dot]org./////////////////////////////////////////////////////////CPOV conference Leipzig | 25 – 26 September 2010The Critical Point of View (CPOV), a Wikipedia research initiative organized in partnership with the Centre of Internet and Society (Bangalore, India), has so far successfully produced two conferences: One in Bangalore in January 2010 and one in Amsterdam in March of the same year. Reports, videos, the mailing list and further resources can be accessed at www.networkcultures.org/cpov. A reader based on the conferences is currently being produced and is planned to be released by January 2011 as a part of the INC reader series. A next conference is foreseen to take place in Leipzig (Germany) 25-26 September 2010 and will be a German speaking CPOV event. For news and updates check the project’s websitehttp://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/leipzig//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society, by Vito CampanelliPublication forthcoming: November 2010The Institute of Network Cultures proudly presents the fourth publication in the Studies in Network Cultures series. This book series is a collaboration between the Institute of Network Cultures (INC) and NAi Publishers.About the book: We live in a world of rapidly evolving digital networks, but within the domain of media theory, which studies the influence of these cultural forms, the implications of aesthetical philosophy have been sorely neglected. Vito Campanelli explores network forms through the prism of aesthetics and thus presents an open invitation to transcend the inherent limitations of the current debate about digital culture. The web is the medium that stands between the new media and society and, more than any other, is stimulating the worldwide dissemination of ideas and behaviour, framing aesthetic forms and moulding contemporary culture and society. Campanelli observes a few important phenomena of today, such as social networks, peer-to-peer networks and ‘remix culture’, and reduces them to their historical premises, thus laying the foundations for an organic aesthetic theory of digital media.About the author: Vito Campanelli is a new media theorist and lectures on the theory and technology of mass communication at the University of Naples – L’Orientale. His essays about media art are regularly published in international periodicals such as Neural. He works as a freelance curator and as a promoter of events in the domain of digital culture. He was also co-founder of the non-profit organization MAO – Media & Arts Office.Earlier editions in the series Studies in Network Cultures:Ned Rossiter, Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers and Amsterdam: Institute for Network Cultures, 2006).Eric Kluitenberg, Delusive Spaces: Essays on Culture, Media and Technology (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers and Amsterdam: Institute for Network Cultures, 2008).Matteo Pasquinelli, Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers and Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2009).More information:http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/studies-in-network-cultures/http://www.naipublishers.com\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Video Vortex Conference in Amsterdam | 11-12 March 2011On the 11th and 12th of March 2011 the next Video Vortex conference will be held in TrouwAmsterdam. Conference themes are: open everything (platforms, software and video), living database vs. dead collection, censorship and YouTube, critique of the amateur (aesthetics + technology), video activism, ethics of online, artist presentations, interaction vs. online video and tactics of online video users.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\E-Publishing Conference in Amsterdam | May/June 2011Amsterdam E-boekenstad is a SIA-RAAK research project initiated by the Electronic Publishing program of the HvA Media Information and Communication, where all elements of the digital learning and reading in higher education are examined and described. Together with the industry (publishers, distributors, e-reader manufacturers, etc.), students and teachers, the program E-Publishing explores the usefulness of e-readers, compares e-readers with print and screen and determines what their advantages are for e-learning. In addition, the implications for the current development chain of e-readers will be mapped, such as repercussions for copyright, publishers and distribution. All these outcomes will be shared and discussed at the E- Publishing conference foreseen in May/June 2011.More informationhttp://www.e-boekenstad.nl/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Create-IT applied research centreCREATE-IT applied research is the knowledge centre of the HvA’s Media, Creation and Information (Media, Creatie en Informatie) domain. The INC is part of this knowledge centre as well as other ‘lectoren’ and the MediaLAB Amsterdam.At this knowledge centre, lecturers, students and researchers carry out applied research commissioned by the creative industry and the IT sector. We collaborate with universities and other knowledge institutes. Research results are used by the professional sector as well as adapted for educational purposes. Applied research provides solutions to urgent practical issues, ensures that educational programs are kept up to date, promotes knowledge circulation and contributes to the professionalization of students and lecturers.More information:http://www.create-it.hva.nl/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Institute of Network Cultures Bloghttp://networkcultures.org/Overview INC Publicationshttp://networkcultures.org/publications/overview/Institute of Network Cultures Media Archivehttp://networkcultures.org/archive/Geert Lovink’s Net critique bloghttp://networkcultures.org/geert/Institute of Network CulturesAmsterdam New Media Research Centrehttp://www.networkcultures.org

bwo BytesforAll/ Fouad Bajwa............................Forwarded for information purposes only!China issues white paper on Internet policyStory: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339058.htmFull text of white paper:http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339232.htmBEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government Tuesday published awhite paper on its Internet policy, stressing the guarantee ofcitizens' freedom of speech on the Internet and more intensiveapplication of it.The white paper, released by the State Council Information Office,introduced facts of the development and use of the Internet in China,and elaborated on the country's basic policies on the Internet.The Chinese government actively advocates and supports the developmentand application of the Internet across the country, it said, stressingthe government's basic Internet policy: active use, scientificdevelopment, law-based administration and ensured security.By the end of 2009 the number of netizens in China had reached 384million, 618 times that of 1997 with an annual increase of 31.95million users.The Internet had reached 28.9 percent of the total population by theend of 2009, higher than the world average. Its accessibility will beraised to 45 percent of the population in the coming five years, itsaid.There were 3.23 million websites running in China last year, which was2,152 times that of 1997.Of all the netizens, 346 million used broadband and 233 million usedmobile phones to access the Internet. They had moved on from dialingthe access numbers to broadband and mobile phones."These statistics make China among the top of the developing countriesin developing and popularizing the Internet," the paper said.--Regards.--------------------------Fouad Bajwa

Please forward as you see fit to other listCall for Papers: The Pirate Book.Piracy and Other Inadmissible Approaches towards Intellectual Property RightsDue to the spread of the internet and the proliferation of means of digital reproduction, piracy has become a global force to be reckoned with. Whatever gets published in digital format – music albums, movies, books, software – will be available for free download on the internet in a matter of hours, on the black markets from Moscow to Manila, from Sao Paolo to Shanghai in days, if the local pirates see a market for it.It is not just records and movies, though that are getting pirated by a restless international industry that employs millions. Clothes, apparel, computer games, cell phones, watches and drugs are copied, and these knock-offs are not just sold in Third World Countries (where they are a particular tourist attraction to Western travelers), but increasingly also in the West/Global North.The rise of piracy in the last decade has been blamed for the downfall of the international music and film industry as well as the decline of whole national cinemas in countries like Cambodia or the Philippines. But at the same time, piracy has become a business that gives agency to traders that previously had no access to the international market. The part that pirated software played in the rise in particular of China, for instance, can hardly be over-estimated.And piracy is a cultural force: film directors from developing countries all over the globe have openly credited pirated DVDs that gave them access to international art house movies not available in their respective countries as important in their development as directors. Universities in many countries would have no text books if it wouldn’t be for book piracy.Nevertheless, the few books that so far have been published on this subject are sensationalistic accounts of the `Piracy-sponsors-terrorism`-ilk. They more often than not simply condemn piracy in a way that gives no justice to the complexities of the topic.The proposed book will try to develop a more nuanced view on this phenomenon. Therefore, we are seeking submissions of new and unpublished papers for an anthology on the global phenomenon of piracy.The reader will not focus on the rights and wrongs of piracy, but rather on how piracy actually works in different parts of the world. However, it will have a special focus on the rationale of piracy in developing countries, and discuss piracy in the frame work of digital culture and phenomena such as Free/Open Source Software, Creative Commons etc. A strong emphasis will be on media piracy. However, articles on other topics such as fashion or pharmaceutical piracy are also welcome.We are in particular looking for essays on1. piracy in China, South America and Eastern Europe,2. Internet Piracy (P2P/file sharing net works),3. closed trackers such as Karagarga.net,4. book piracy (How comes the vendors of pirated books on the riverside of Phnom Penh always have the latest version of the “Lonely Planet”?),6. historic instances of product piracy (not sea piracy)7. modified, "improved" and localized knock-offs of iPhones from China etc8. piracy of pharmaceutical products and fashion apparel9. and the cultural consequences of piracy.Please send your abstracts of 300 words in length with a brief bio (including e-mail) and a work sample (a published essay) by August 15 to the editorDr. Tilman BaumgärtelRoyal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodiamail at tilmanbaumgaertel dot net.The final essays should be between 20.000 and 50.000 characters (with spaces).Deadline for abstract: 15. August 2010

Hi Nettimers,In February 2010 the Ippolita Collective completed an update of their book"Google's Lights and Shadows" (aka "The Dark Face of Google" (*).Sorry it took so long for a translation to appear - but then I am famouslylazy!Anyway, here it is.The book itself is fully downloadable in Italian, French, and Castilian,and in English without the notes (sorry again, folks!), at:http://www.ippolita.net/googleCheers, patrizio & Diiiinooos!(*) or is the Dark _Side_? Sorry for the confusion, we'll decide on thisone day...;-)------------------------------------------------------------------The Dark Face of GoogleUpdate February 2010A simple storyBack in 2006 The Ippolita Collective was setting its heart to write a bookabout the transition from epistemology to ontology in the digital worlds.We were holding for self-evident that the matter of 'what' (the things youknow) was being replaced by the matter of "who" (as in "who you are"): themanagement of knowledge had therefore shifted into the management - and the shaping - of identity. But because we felt not able to write such abook (but please if any of you could be able to do it - we'd gladlyhelp!), and also because we felt there would hardly be a public for it -as we are not part of the academic world, so no 'dear colleagues' whowould be interested in our brainchildren… Well, so Ippolita decided to gofor Google instead. Google is a bit too big to pass unnoticed, but whatholds for Google holds as well for the other giants in the world of searchengines (like Yahoo! Bing! etc.). Google is simply the best know, the mostused, and the most many-faced, so it seemed to make sense to subject it toan extensive critique. But doing this we would not forget that at thattime Google was merely the most obvious and universally understandableexample of the shift taking place - and this is even more the case today.To put it differently, of the viral spread of attitudes and practices ofdelegation to an actor who is openly voicing hegemonic statementsregarding its own 'research objectives', who openly regards, and willbend, these technologies as a mean to satisfy its own requirements.A few years have gone by. The book has been read, downloaded, reviewed,and translated. And to our surprise, Google, instead of caving in (notbecause of our book, but as consequence of the rise of a new technologyactor), has taken more pre-eminence than ever. Together with 'cloudcomputing', the vapor of data, there is also a 'FOG' spreading: not asmist, but fear: "Fear Of Google" (N1). The fear is not so much that aknowledge monopoly might threaten the interests of individuals - who arethe caboose of political concerns anyway - but that it might constitute areal menace to established powers, be they corporate or politic, what usedto be called 'the industrial-military complex'. Follows a flowering ofstudies and discussions, and the big corporations lawyers are workingovertime to fill cases in order to prevent Google from altering the statusquo - or at least to stake a claim to their piece of the cake …Ippolita still claims not to be an expert on the subject: our experiencesand competencies accrue during the research, and we are certainly notspending our whole life tracking BigG's dirty tricks. So it's now time torapidly go through the latest developments and check out if the analysismodel we suggested has withstood the test of time. We think it does,because if even the novelties have been thick on the ground, it hasapparently been a case of the famous Lampedusa quote ("If we want thingsto stay as they are, things will have to change."). Google is today'sGuepard (N2), relentlessly pursuing his goal to "organize all knowledge" -for all the world.Google is the class' best pupil, henceforth the de facto standard of "theweb-ization of all things". Every bit of information is becomingincreasingly accessible through a web-connected terminal, which more andmore means: Google. Amidst the earlier search engines, which were cloggedwith ever more intrusive banners and adds, Google was a great novelty. Itsno-nonsense efficaciousness, together with its 'philosophy of excellence'(largely thanks to the open code) made it widely acclaimed, with geeks andacademics welcoming it as the cool alternative on the web: Google was'good', as other multinationals were 'evil'. But the fundamental problemwas already there right at its inception: an enterprise striving tocatalogue all existing digital information can only have hegemony as itsgoal, and this hegemony is now felt in many sectors as posing a threat.Knowledge is power, and if the knowledge means having access to andownership of all the data generated by users, then it is obvious that theone owning the cloud of data is in the dominant position. By positingitself as the Net's almost unique - or at least, leading - entry point,Google represents an unheard-of concentration of power. Something privateindividuals, companies and governments, and in general, any actor usinginformation technology, cannot avoid to be confronted with.Haven't there been any changes, then?Did anything change is the question. Well, not much, really. But we canalways draw a list of BigG's novelties - only those that did impress onus, of course (and which we did notice). An overview of the 'evolutionarytrends' of 'the Google machine' must per force start with the opening-uptowards smart phones and other advanced e-devices: the Android operatingsystem is now a fast developing commercial reality and competes fiercelywith Windows Mobile, IPads and IPhones, Symbian-Maemo, etc.(N3). As hasbeen often noted, the browser is more and more a development environment;hence the browser-made-in-Mountain-View could not be far away: There beChrome, and his little Open Source brother, Chromium (N4). As anincreasing proportion of user time of devices (PCs and smart phones) isspend connecting to the Internet, the role of the browser as navigatinginstrument in the Net Ocean becomes more and more central (N5).Now let's have a look at Google's 'services'. Google Health enables one tofile, search, and share personal medical data; further developments andintegration with ever more advanced mash-up are progressing at swift pace,the most spectacular field being that of mapping territories: Street Viewcomes now very close to military intelligence devices. Google has nowalso become a DNS provider with Google apps. It has now become possible tomove one's own domain around, including e-mail, and to use Calendar,Gdocs, Sites - at the moment up to 25 Gmail mailboxes can be hosted onone's own domain. A bonanza for small companies, as nobody can offer thatmuch in exchange for just a few, contextual adds. A battle royal withMicrosoft and Apple is ail locked up when the moment Google OS islaunched. Google OS is a complete operating system, entirely based on -surprise! - GNU/Linux code. And the Chrome browser is probably going to bethe pounding heart of this terminal-system giving direct connection to the"Google Cloud".And Google doesn't want to be left behind when it comes to socialnetworks: after a trial with Orkut (still very popular in Brazil) it's nowthe turn of Google Wave and Buzz, the latter achieving actual convergencebetween chat, picture galleries, discussions, personal RSS, e-mail, andmicro-blogging.What all these development share as a common issue is privacy. It's nowthe talk of the town. Google is widely being pictured as a major threat toour privacy. How comes? Aren't other service and access providers a threattoo? And wasn't Google supposed to be "the Gentle Giant"?The false problem of privacy, and the real one: profiling."Public private life" is an oxymoron if there is one, and yet it expressesvery well the sense of befuddlement that seizes one upon discovering - noit's not a discovery by Ippolita, it has been known for years by now -that exists scanning software out there, extrapolating keywords out ofyour electronic correspondence in order to target you with personalizedadds, and all this piggybacking on your 'private and confidential'exchanges. Google has made obvious the reality of a sphere that is neitherprivate nor public, which is overlorded by technocracies. Does privacylaws actually protect medical data in possession of health authorities?Same question for criminal records held by the penal system? It is clearthat problems arise when this kind of data become accessible - that is,much more accessible than they were previously, as digital archives aremuch more accessible through search engines than analog archives used tobe (N6). respect of privacy, or simple discretion, is the "right to beleft alone", in all matters considered private, including everything onewants to keep private. But 'private life' has become a non-issue. It is anempty and meaningless concept, the more so that it needs to be violatedfirst in order to become tangible. Moreover, if the idea is that respectfor people's privacy means "protection of those data that are sensitivewith regard to individuals and must be protected from inspection bynon-authorized parties", then, ever since Echelon (N7), it is obvious thatwe are talking about something that does not exist and has been out ofexistence for very long time.And actually the problem is not so much to be under surveillance: eachcall is being taped (in theory this is kept only for a limited time),every move made on line is logged by this machine or another (for instancethe one which provides net access). The issue remains very complex all thesame. The concept of 'profiling' is maybe the most useful in order to cometo grasp with the situation, since Google is not so much interested by anindividual as such, but in her or his profile, this in order what for a'type' of 'customer' she or he potentially represents for Google'sadvertisers, or which sort of user/ developer/ prosumer she or he couldpotentially represent for its own services. Of course it is ratherdisquieting to know that the term profiling originates in a crime-fightingrelated activity: file all the criminal, and profile 'm all. But far moredisturbing is the fact that most people apparently couldn't care less, buton the contrary demand to be even more intensively and permanentlycontrolled, this because many people (and that does not includes onlyavowed cyber-fetichists) simply want to avail of instruments they areunable to manage in an autonomous manner, and which constitute powerfulself-snitching tools. Hence, there is no need together data on each andevery individual and waste precious resources in the process; it is fareasier to leave this task to the individuals themselves, all you need isto sell them advanced PCs which are continuously connected to socialnetworking sites (enabling you to map the inter-personal linkages),usually including video-cams and GPS … as are today's smartphones andother fast selling gadgets!And regarding the question of police, military, intelligence, and assortedauthorities, never mind all kinds of criminal ones, being able to access these data in due time, the recent case of China is extremely instructive:the authorities there were able to break - or to have broken - open theGMail mailboxes leading to dissidents the government didn't like, andunlash repression on them. And that surprises nobody, as concentration ofpower almost always leads to an anxiety to dominate even more (N8).So what happened? Why has the level of perceived security come down so low?Security paranoia and technocratic militarisationThe debate about security, whether perceived or presumed real, is fed bynumbers. But statistics are fairly useless: they're only series of numbersintended to bolster one's standpoint, and meant to justify, not explain.It would be however more interesting to look into the origins of thissecurity paranoia and to try to understand how it is related to theupheavals the introduction of digital technology has caused. It is not ourintention to go here into an issue that has been discussed so much. It isheartening to see the number of studies that have been devoted to theelaboration by authorities of fear-based policies (N9). Seen in the in thecontext of this study, one can, at the risk of extreme schematization, saythat the stapling and cross-contamination of the spheres of the public/the private; subjective opinions/ objective realities, and the individualvs the collective are a bit difficult to manage. And instead of increasingthe number of public hearings devoted to the management of technologicalpower, the delegation that goes together with the unthinking use ofdigital instruments only augments the technological imbalance. Googletakes a pole position in this technocratic game of dominance, expandingall the time and striving to englobe all aspects of daily life: no longersearching information only, but talk, move, have fun, have a chat …The perception one has of one's frailty and the extreme exposure one issubjected to by an impersonal technocracy only increases the craving forsecurity. And from there stems a further increase of technocratic control,ending up in an unprecedented level of securocratic militarization. Andeverybody is perforce enlisted: go snitch on your neighbor, he lookssuspicious - he could be a terrorist, who nows… threat level at # … Moresurveillance is required… All this but for the fact that controls are atthe opposite end of privacy, and that nobody appears to have the slightestidea about who is going to control the controllers, and how. The onlything that is sure, in this race to control, is that the quantity of datathat is stocked in already existing control systems, is by now vastlybeyond the management capacious of the very actors (private or public,civilian or military) who have installed them. Hence even more freshcontrollers must be induced in order to screen through millions of indexedsites, the zillions of hours of footage recorded by as many CCTV cameras,etc., all this in the hunt for deviation, for threats to 'publicsecurity'. One can imagine that before long, citizens will be invited,maybe in exchange for a modest fee, to become assistant policepeople,detectives, snitchers or spies. And otherwise, the massive use of spindoctors in politics, in conjunction with the use of info-guerillatactics(aka infowar) in order to influence and manipulate public opiniononly serve to further heighten the general sense of confusion. Findingones way in real time 'society of spectacle' has never been so hard (N10).Perspectives and Involutions.Once a new infrastructure has been built and an immense network erected,it must function properly. Accumulation must bear fruit. So one canconfidently expect new initiatives to be launched, new services offeredfor free, or very cheaply (at least for a start), so as to max out theimmense potential of the data-centers, of the network infrastructures, andlast but not least, of all the data that are being collected therewith. Inthis sense, the 'fear' that Google is going to impact on the businessmodel of whole swathes of businesses is not unfounded: from publishing tojournalism and telephony, Google's sway will be felt. Here are a fewplausible scenarios: Google as ISP, Google as telco, Google aslocalization service, 2D or 3D, Google as publisher, Google HDTV, GoogleVideo on Demand, Google Space for online multiplayers game (MPG), GoogleTelemedicine, etc. etc. You can safely bet that every single of theseservices will at least be explored by BigG, since it holds all the cardnecessary to be a player, to wit: a sweltering mass of users data,increasing all the time, profiled search results with targetedadvertisements, more and more broadband and memory on hard drives. So letsmake up - no pretense of exhaustivity here - a list of what kind ofperspectives all this might open up.Google is the perfect example of centralization and vertical integrationin organizing the digital domain. In contrast to this model, it would beinteresting to explore and to construct decentralized and horizontalsystems on basis of distributed, peer-to-peer search engines. There isalready a functioning prototype: YaCy, a Free Software search engine,which offers a "pluralism of sources", whereby the crawler is launched byeach user on the range of data to be indexed and the search results becomeavailable in a distributed fashion (N11).All this raises many questions in China, for instance. It is clear thatthe problems Google is encountering and will encounter even more in thefuture in its relentless pursuit of global, capillary penetration, comefrom the totally unprecedented situation it finds itself in. As Google isin the possession of an unheard of quantity of extremely sensitive data,which are of unheard of quality to boot, like personal communications, itoften actually possesses more information on the citizen of a given statethan that state itself! No wonder that the holder of the monopoly ofviolence - the state and its agencies - would very much like to get holdof these data itself, especially when we are talking about anauthoritarian state like China. There is of course no guarantee it willthen make a better or a worse use of these data than Google does. As thereare no precedents to bank on, every state reacts differently to this'challenge'. But there is also a worrisome technical aspect to the issue:is Google 'crackable'? It would look like it is, given the declarations ofMountain View spokespeople regarding intrusions in GMail mailboxes whichtook place, not through theft or other forms of password capture, but bymaking use of weaknesses in the system itself.Thinking about this encounter/ confrontation between a private firm andwhole nation-states opens up other, pretty scary scenarios, especially inthe field of collaboration (voluntary or enforced) between Google andintelligence services. And there is also the aspect that if Google reallygets to be considered as an 'essential service', i.e. one one can nolonger do without, it would find itself in the same position as banks andother status-quo upholding 'essential' enterprises, aka "too big to fail".During the last financial crash - which surely won't be Capital's lastcrisis - it has been already problematic to explain state bail-outs amidstthe prevailing neo-liberal consensus. So how are we going to proceed tomake a multinational like Google 'public' - meaning state ownership - ifthe need arises? And yet there have been shots in that direction, whichunfortunately appear not very far removed from the spectre of a New WorldOrder (N12). To say it once again: an unprecedented concentration of powerrepresents an unprecedented potentiality of domination.Alternatives Ahoy?The Ippolita Collective is now often being approached as if it was anexpert in matters Google Inc. The conversation inevitably ends up with usbeing asked: " OK, it's clear that threes is a load of problems. But weare not experts like you guys, we are simple users. We are Google'spassive victims. We thought Google was good, and now turns out it's evil.What is the alternative then?Alternatives don't come out of the blues, they must be built. And there issurely not a single alternative. And there's no alternative at all if thethings we want are a 'instantaneous' search engine, 'free' 100MB e-mail,and other services, many more services, constantly new services, andfaster services - without ever thinking about who actually manages and ownthese services. So if the sky is the limit to the digital demand, then thesole alternative to Google is a Google clone growing fatter even fasterand offering even more at even greater speed.An other approach would be for people to start building qualityalternatives in an autonomous manner. The necessary, but not sufficientpre-condition is the ascertainment of one's personal desires beforeembarking on using technologies. This is especially true if their usebecome mainstream without any reflecting on it, simply because the tech isthere, it's apparently free of cost, and you can't do without it if youwant to keep up with the current trends. Which means to give oneself overto the dromocratic wave, to the cult of speed Paul Virilio has commentedon for long time now (N13). The alternative to an industrialtechnological system, of which Google is simply the most manifest example, on the other hand, consists in the creation of convivial technologicaltools, by which we mean tools crafted at the mesaure of the people usingthem, by the people using them and with the help of kindred people. Theidea being to think about what things are made of and how they are made(also on the web) before just doing something with them (N14). alreadyquite a number of people are doing precisely this, they devise, distributeand make multiply solutions that are individual, temporary, tailor-made,autonomous and self-determined, transmissible and traducible, andenjoyable. This for the satisfaction of their own cognitive needs anddesires by way of technological instruments. This idea of conviviality isnot new (N15), and she has been and is still being practiced in manyforms, also on the web - there are many tools out there, you need only tosearch them out (with or without Google ;-) and all they need is to beused in even newer ways by the daily dwellers in Cyberspace.Q&D translation by Patrice RiemensGroningen, July 14, 2010.----------------------------------Notes(N1) FOG (http://fearofgoogle.com - but temporarily suspended atbluehost.com!) was a site that for many years gave beef to the 'fear ofGoogle' (cf. http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/06/fear-of-google/ also:http://searchenginewatch.com/3633580 - both in 2007). The fear has notstopped, but spread world-wide in the meanwhile…(N2) African leopard. Refers to the title of the iconic Italian novel 'IlGattopardo' (1956) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and its most famousquote.(N3) Android is a virtual machine set up on a modified Linux kernel - aswith nokia/maemo, but then less 'free'.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) andhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo(N4) Browser as development environment: see infra. Chrome and chromiumsee the relevant Google.com sites; also:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome andhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)(N5) No wonder then that Google is funding the Mozilla Foundation to thetune of $60m a year. But then what will happen when Google finishesdeveloping "the fastest browser ever"?(N6) How many of us ever looked into a criminal record? Not many, weguess. But these days, information about pedophiles, and other delinquentsare just a click away, especially in the USA.(N7) Echelon is a military-industrial intelligence gathering operationeavesdropping on all the world's digital telecommunications, operating forthe past four decennia, and now even more performing than ever (cf.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)(N8) On profiling and associated issues there appears to be an excellentItalian site : http://www.delirandom.net/ - in Italian … Check out theextensive (but apparently 'in need of editing') Wikipedia entry on thesubject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiling_practices(N9) Eg. Critical arts Ensemble, Marching Plague, NY, Autonomedia, 2006.L.Napoleoni & R. Bee I Numeri Del Terrore Perché non dobbiamo aver paura(The numbers of terror - and why we should not fear) Milano, Saggiatore2008(N10) (NB: I couldn't find this note back in the text between N9 and N11,so I 'contextualised' it here - tr)This is a tricky subject and most autors touching it appear to have beeninfected by the conspiracy virus, an affliction made worse by a rathercurious (un)balancing act between the demand for both an absolute freedomof expression, and a truth-certifying authority. Even if taken with thenecessary dose of skepticism, Bruno Lussato probably provides the mostdisquieting account of distributed disinformation: Bruno Lussato, Virus,Huit leçons sur la désinformation (Virus, eight lectures ondisinformation) Paris: Syrtes (2007). Something in English on his site: http://www.brunolussato.com/archives/878-The-november-16-paper.html(N11) http://yacy.net/ Sorry I couldn't entirely make up the meaning ofthis sentence, so best is to refer to the YaCy site itself, where theset-up is explained in terms of: (i) peer-to-peer index sharing (ii) de-centralized architecture (iii) uncensored search and (iv) total security.(N12) The French sociologist, economist and philosopher Yann MoulierBoutang has published extensively on the political aspects of the'knowledge economy', especially in the sphere of knowledge production andownership. Read more in the review Multitudes http://multitudes.samizdat.net (some articles, and all abstracts, aretranslated in English)(N13) Paul Virilio, Speed and Politics, New York: Semiotexte (1986)(original, Vitesse et Politique: 1977). An introduction in English at:http://www.daaq.net/folio/bibliography/b_virilio.html (by Peter Kantor)(N14) Ippolita's talk at the Society of the Query Conference, Amsterdam:http://interno.eleuthera.it/webs/karlessi/finalstringato_ippolita_amsterdamSOQ_2009k.pdfOn convivial technologies: Carlo Milani "Scritture conviviali: tecnologieper participare" (2009) (thesis, in Italian):http://interno.eleuthera.it/webs/karlessi/tuttosinotepiedek.pdf(N15) Ivan Illich was an early precursor with his book 'Tools forConviviality' (1973) For more, see:http://hubpages.com/hub/Conviviality-Ivan-Illich also the Wikipediaentry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich`

(For those who read German, or soon will, this is a great read, in particular the last part on his 'dialogical life'. Becoming media theorist as a fate. Such a Schicksal?! /Geert)http://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/diss/z2009/0786/English summary of PhD on Vilem Flusser by Andreas Ströhl:Vilém Flusser worked as a philosopher, author and university teacher in four countries. A native Czech, born in Prague in 1920, he died as a Brazilian citizen in a car accident in 1991 near Bor u Tachova, Czechoslovakia. Flusser experienced his last-minute escape from Nazi- occupied Prague in 1940 and the loss of almost all his family through deportations into death camps as a permanent crisis of an existential “bottomlessness“. In Brazil, he engaged himself in the creation of a new society, progressive and utopian at the same time. As a reaction to the dooming failure of that project he moved to France in 1973, after three decades in São Paulo. His oeuvre is scattered over four languages and many publishing houses, who have marketed Flusser as a media theorist in rather unbalanced and biased ways. Consequently, the reception of Flusser as a phenomenologically oriented theorist and critic of culture has remained marginal. However, 18 years after his untimely death, Flusser’s reputation as an original philosopher in his own right is growing – especially in Brazil, Central Europe and most recently also in the English-speaking world.In his texts, Vilém Flusser focused on the epochal paradigm shift from a culture of “linear thinking“ towards new ways of communication with technical images and digital codes. Flusser conjures up the hope that the implementation of the new technologies of communication enable a “telematic“ society that allows for the recognition of the Other in dialogues. The dissertation aims at a critical overall view of Flusser’s thinking in its entirety – the first endeavour of this kind. Its explicit objective is to reposition Flusser as a communications phenomenologist whose intention is to affect society and its further development. A biographical introduction to Flusser is followed by a study of various terms and aspects central to his thinking. Critiques of Flusser are evaluated in depth as well as the history of his reception. The thematic complexes of medial codes, of dialogues and of the apparatus as well as Flusser’s specific concept of “humanisation“ are dealt with in detail. In this approach the phenomenology of media, the philosophy of communications and questions of cultural anthropology are put in the context of an analysis of the Czech-German and Jewish Habsburg-Austrian environment that proved to be fertile ground for the development of Flusser’s interests and theses. Flusser can be regarded as one of the last representatives of the short but amazingly rich intellectual blossoming of the Jewish-Czech-German culture that was put to a sudden halt by the German invasion into Prague in 1939.Taking into account the massive impact these cultural traditions of Old Central Europe had on Flusser, the text argues that in the development of Flusser’s thinking a projection of the Prague past onto the Brazilian future can be recognized. The source of this projection also sheds light on the consequences Flusser drew from the failure of the “Brazil Project“ in the early 1970s. Flusser’s thinking in his late period aims at the development of a theory of technical images as the centerpiece of a more comprehensive theory of culture. The theory of techno-images thus becomes a critique of the “general apparatus of culture and the position of human beings in it“, because the “present cultural revolution is not ideological but technical“. In the course of his life Flusser changed from a political cultural activist into a phenomenological cultural theorist reformulating traditional philosophy under medial conditions as a philosophy of communications. The purpose of this endeavour was to develop a description of the creation of meaning not only in individual processes but also within a wider social context. The latter was to a large extent based on Martin Buber’s concept of “dialogical life“, substantially refined and de- theologized by Flusser. From this perspective, the creation and circulation of new information in society is a cultural necessity, and it can only be achieved through dialogue.Due to the situation Flusser found himself in, in the face of a post- historical society threatened by a process of massification through discourses, the philosopher of culture was forced to act as a communicologist. However, he had to be more than a mere theorist of the media: both a theorist of culture and a philosopher. The connection between the creation of meaning for individuals through dialogue on the one hand and the functioning of society on the other is to be considered the paramount contribution of Flusser’s thinking. Flusser strove for a theoretical foundation for the organisation of present and future culture and for the preservation of its potential to further develop under the condition of structures of communication dominated by apparatus.

Speculative unclarity of Parties at the root of failure to form a new Dutch governmentJuly 20, 2010 by Tjebbe van Tijen /The Limp;ing Messengerthe illustrated version with a horse tableau is at this addresshttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/speculative-unclarity-of-parties-at-the-root-of-failure-to-form-a-new-dutch-government/Compromise happens to be the most radical act in politics, allowing for the sharing of power, accepting differences to such an extant that it even changes your own opinion. In Dutch politics there always have been more horses wanting to draw the carriage of state than directions to go to, so compromises of what direction to take need to be made. Today after weeks of negotiations the attempt to form a Liberal + Middle + Left + Green ‘carriage-and-four’ combination failed. We are back to two options that have been considered over a month or so back in time, with two possible ‘troikas’ (horse teams) with Left + Middle + Liberal or a set of horses with Liberal + Middle + Right horses. The power distribution of all this pulling power is such that the two combinations on view – once again – will have the same pulling forward power as the pulling backward power of the possible opposition coalitions in parliament. So the outcome may well be no movement at all. Backing the wrong coalition of horses may end up with putting the cart before the horse.What we see is the unwise consequences of parliamentary democracy, where parties did not make it clear before elections with which other horses they would like to pull the carriage. “It is to the voters to speak” that is what most party leaders said before elections. This speculative and unclear tactics whereby parties try to keep the mandate they receive from their voters to themselves and settle a government coalition in non-transparent outmoded secret back-room negotiations, have now shown its undemocratic face and utter failure.The Netherlands need a fundamental change whereby the dynamic favour shifts of the electorate can find a real democratic expression in a series of binding combinations, that have been communicated clearly before elections. With the institution of a direct involvement of a constitutional head of state – in the form of a hereditary queen or king – in the forming of government coalitions, the Netherlands remain one of the most backward nations in Europe when it comes to direct forms of democracy. This in spite of all the self-glorification of the Dutch as a freedom loving and superior democratic nation. That is nothing more than double-dutch fantasy… or better a dutch-lie.Tjebbe van TijenImaginary Museum ProjectsDramatizing Historical Informationhttp://imaginarymuseum.orgweb-blog: The Limping Messengerhttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/

From: Robin Gross <robin-WmABvuG3kuHNLxjTenLetw< at >public.gmane.org>Date: Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 8:33 PMSubject: IP Justice Comments on Morality & Public Order (MAPO) Objections in DAG4To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS-JX7+OpRa80SJISurH+wZVQ< at >public.gmane.orgFYI: IP Justice Comments on DAG4 Morality & Public Order (MAPO) ObjectionsRE: Remove MAPO Objections; Allow Nations to deal with MAPO and ICANN to get on with new gtlds + protect free speech as a bonusThe DAG4 so-called Morality and Public Order (MAPO) objections to new gtlds should be removed as illegitimate, outside ICANN's scope, likely to expose ICANN to constant litigation, and chilling to freedom of expression on the Internet.As explained in Brussels by the US Representative to GAC: there simply are no internationally recognized standards to legislate "morality and public order". For ICANN to attempt to create any MAPO standards is clearly outside of ICANN's mandate and its authority. ICANN risks getting tangled-up in ugly political battles by trying to legislate MAPO standards and it undermines ICANN's legitimacy to govern at all by trying to legislate MAPO.The proposal in DAGv4 for dealing with morality and public order is "one-size-fits-all" in which anyone can block a new gltd because their subjective sense of morality is offended. Obviously this is practically unworkable and terribly over-restrictive. It does not make sense for ICANN to block the creation of a top-level domain because some countries chose not to access the content. Issues of morality and public order are matters of national law. National legislatures and national courts are the appropriate place to adjudicate what ideas may be expressed and by whom. Neither ICANN, nor out-sourced dispute resolution businesses (such as the International Chamber of Commerce) have any right to prevent people and countries from making their own choices about what information they wish to access. If a registration violates a law that applies to that registration, it is easily prohibited on legal grounds. Creating an additional level of MAPO- based objections only invites arbitrariness, subjectivity and global censorship.The GNSO Recommendation F provides guidance on the GNSO's mandate for new gtlds: "The string evaluation process must not infringe the applicant's freedom of expression rights that are protected under internationally recognized principles of law."ICANN has an obligation to respect the free expression rights of Internet users, which are nearly universally guaranteed through various national constitutions and international treaties. In particular, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks directly to ICANN on this issue: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."Surely ICANN does not contend that the free expression guarantees provided to individuals from national constitutions and international treaties does not apply to ICANN. Surely ICANN would not suggest its governance model exempts it from providing previously guaranteed protections for civil liberties. Yet that is exactly what is proposed in DAG4 and must be removed for the next version.It also worth reminding that ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) and its At-Large Advisory Community have both lodged objections to the MAPO policy since it was first proposed. NCUC did not vote in favor of the MAPO measures when they were before the GNSO Council (see NCUC's dissenting opinion below) and the opposition from the non- commercial stakeholders to MAPO-based objections continues to remain strong.ICANN should uphold freedom of expression values and remove the illegitimate MAPO-based objections to new gtlds so these concerns can be adjudicated in the appropriate legitimate fora at the national level. The sooner ICANN realizes its only practical course of action is throw MAPO out, the sooner it can get on with introducing new gtlds.Respectfully submitted,Robin GrossIP Justice____________________________________________________________From: http://ipjustice.org/ICANN/drafts/rec6ncuc.htmlSee also: http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/icann/gtlds/STATEMENT OF DISSENT ON RECOMMENDATION #6 OFGNSO?S NEW GTLD REPORT FROMTHE NON-COMMERCIAL USERS CONSTITUENCY (NCUC)20 July 2007(.pdf file)NCUC supports most of the recommendations in the GNSO?s Final Report, but Recommendation #6 is one we cannot support.We oppose Recommendation #6 for the following reasons:1) It will completely undermine ICANN?s efforts to make the gTLD application process predictable, and instead make the evaluation process arbitrary, subjective and political;2) It will have the effect of suppressing free and diverse expression;3) It exposes ICANN to litigation risks;4) It takes ICANN too far away from its technical coordination mission and into areas of legislating morality and public order.We also believe that the objective of Recommendation #6 is unclear, in that much of its desirable substance is already covered by Recommendation #3. At a minimum, we believe that the words ?relating to morality and public order? must be struck from the recommendation.1) Predictability, Transparency and ObjectivityRecommendation #6 poses severe implementation problems. It makes it impossible to achieve the GNSO?s goals of predictable and transparent evaluation criteria for new gTLDs.Principle 1 of the New gTLD Report states that the evaluation process must be ?predictable,? and Recommendation #1 states that the evaluation criteria must be transparent, predictable, and fully available to applicants prior to their application.NCUC strongly supports those guidelines. But no gTLD applicant can possibly know in advance what people or governments in a far away land will object to as ?immoral? or contrary to ?public order.? When applications are challenged on these grounds, applicants cannot possibly know what decision an expert panel ? which will be assembled on an ad hoc basis with no precedent to draw on ? will make about it.Decisions by expert panels on ?morality and public order? must be subjective and arbitrary, because there is no settled and well- established international law regarding the relationship between TLD strings and morality and public order. There is no single ?community standard? of morality that ICANN can apply to all applicants in every corner of the globe. What is considered ?immoral? in Teheran may be easily accepted in Los Angeles or Stockholm; what is considered a threat to ?public order? in China and Russia may not be in Brazil and Qatar.2) Suppression of expression of controversial viewsgTLD applicants will respond to the uncertainty inherent in a vague ?morality and public order? standard and lack of clear standards by suppressing and avoiding any ideas that might generate controversy. Applicants will have to invest sizable sums of money to develop a gTLD application and see it through the ICANN process. Most of them will avoid risking a challenge under Recommendation #6. In other words, the presence of Recommendation #6 will result in self- censorship by most applicants.That policy would strip citizens everywhere of their rights to express controversial ideas because someone else finds them offensive. This policy recommendation ignores international and national laws, in particular freedom of expression guarantees that permit the expression of ?immoral? or otherwise controversial speech on the Internet.3) Risk of litigationSome people in the ICANN community are under the mistaken impression that suppressing controversial gTLDs will protect it from litigation. Nothing could be further from the truth. By introducing subjective and culturally divisive standards into the evaluation process Recommendation #6 will increase the likelihood of litigation.ICANN operates under authority from the US Commerce Department. It is undisputed that the US Commerce Department is prohibited from censoring the expression of US citizens in the manner proposed by Recommendation #6. The US Government cannot ?contract away? the constitutional protections of its citizens to ICANN any more than it can engage in the censorship itself.Adoption of Recommendation #6 invites litigation against ICANN to determine whether its censorship policy is compatible with the US First Amendment. An ICANN decision to suppress a gTLD string that would be permitted under US law could and probably would lead to legal challenges to the decision as a form of US Government action.If ICANN left the adjudication of legal rights up to courts, it could avoid the legal risk and legal liability that this policy of censorship brings upon it.4) ICANN?s mission and core valuesRecommendation #6 exceeds the scope of ICANN?s technical mission. It asks ICANN to create rules and adjudicate disputes about what is permissible expression. It enables it to censor expression in domain names that would be lawful in some countries. It would require ICANN and ?expert panels? to make decisions about permitting top-level domain names based on arbitrary ?morality? judgments and other subjective criteria. Under Recommendation #6, ICANN will evaluate domain names based on ideas about ?morality and public order? -- concepts for which there are varying interpretations, in both law and culture, in various parts of the world. Recommendation #6 risks turning ICANN into the arbiter of ?morality? and ?appropriate? public policy through global rules.This new role for ICANN conflicts with its intended narrow technical mission, as embodied in its mission and core values. ICANN holds no legitimate authority to regulate in this entirely non-technical area and adjudicate the legal rights of others. This recommendation takes the adjudication of people?s rights to use domain names out of the hands of democratically elected representatives and into the hands of ?expert panels? or ICANN staff and board with no public accountability.Besides exceeding the scope of ICANN?s authority, Recommendation #6 seems unsure of its objective. It mandates ?morality and public order? in domain names, but then lists, as examples of the type of rights to protect, the WTO TRIPS Agreement and all 24 World Intellectual Property (WIPO) Treaties, which deal with economic and trade rights, and have little to do with ?morality and public order?. Protection for intellectual property rights was fully covered in Recommendation #3, and no explanation has been provided as to why intellectual property rights would be listed again in a recommendation on ?morality and public order?, an entirely separate concept.In conclusion Recommendation #6 exceeds ICANN?s authority, ignores Internet users? free expression rights, and its adoption would impose an enormous burden on and liability for ICANN. It should not be adopted by the Board of Directors in the final policy decision for new gtlds.------------From:http://ipjustice.org/ICANN/drafts/PDP-Dec05-NCUC-CONST-STMT-JUNE2007.htmNCUC Impact Statement on New GTLD Recommendations 12 June 2007[...]Recommendation 6Again, we welcome the amendment to include recognition of rights to Freedom of Expression.[22] It is quite clear that this applies to single words and to strings, see Taubman v. Webfeats 319 F.3d 770 (6th Circuit 2003) ("The rooftops of our past have evolved into the Internet domain names of our present. We find that the domain name is a type of public expression, no different in scope than a billboard or a pulpit, and [defendant] has a First Amendment right to express his opinion about [plaintiff], as long as his speech is not commercially misleading, the Lanham Act cannot be summoned to prevent it).We welcome the deletion of GAC Public Policy principle 2.1 from the GNSO?s recommendations. We objected in the strongest possible terms to the vague standard of ?sensitivities,? which would subject all to the most restrictive views and had no place in the international legal order. GAC quoted selectively from the preamble to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) without reference to the enumerated specific right to Freedom of Expression in Article 19.[23] The UDHR Art. 29(2) provides the only permitted limits.[24] Similarly, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) mandates Freedom of Expression should only be subject to limits prescribed by law[25] and necessary in a democratic society for one of the enumerated purposes, see Article 10[26] which also applies to commercial expression.[27] Strict scrutiny is applied to any attempt to limit the free expression of an idea.[28]This Recommendation is borrowed from trade mark law[29] and the French concept of ?ordre public.?[30] This is now subject to Article 10 ECHR[31] and Freedom of Expression and the modern standard is high. [32] While a few nations limit Free Expression by laws preventing hate speech, and incitement to violence, lowering the threshold to ?sensitivities? is tantamount to mandating political correctness,[33] forced hegemony, and is dangerous and to be resisted in every context. It does not matter how laudable the public policy objective, ICANN should remain content neutral.[34]We oppose any string criteria based on morality and public order. The context is not exclusively commercial speech so trade mark law is not an analogy as registration of marks on government Registers involves an element of state sanction[35] that is not true of the DNS (though many seek it).[36] There is no consensus on the regulation of morality in non-commercial speech in international law. We refer to the quote from Taubman (above)?the TLDs are billboards. Democracies do not have laws requiring people to speak or behave morally. Some nations do have such rules ? undemocratic theocracies mainly.ICANN should stick to its technical remit, which it risks grossly exceeding here. It should defer to applicable national laws on matters of public order and morality. Applicants should comply with the content laws in the countries in which they operate.[37] The only real issue is, in any event, public order which is already served by nations? own laws on obscenity, fighting words, hate speech and incitement.Please be aware that criticism, satire, parody of others and their beliefs are a fundamental tenant of Freedom of Expression[38] which includes the right to offend. ICANN must ensure this in practice and mere references to Treaties and Conventions do not go far enough.IP JUSTICERobin Gross, Executive Director1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USAp: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451w: http://www.ipjustice.org e: robin-WmABvuG3kuHNLxjTenLetw< at >public.gmane.org

The precariousness of the symbolic economy sustaining thisparticular belief system, an alternative religion foratheists, requires equivalent leaps of faith.Much conceptual art of the 1970s and 1980s was motivated bya desire to circumvent or subvert the commodity-based artmarket. Now, paradoxically, it is exactly this intellectualoverlay of self-conscious resistance to the purely visualthat collectors and curators desire. For many art worldinsiders and art aficionados of other kinds, concept-drivenart is a kind of existential channel through which theybring meaning to their lives. The art world can often beopaque and downright secretive, there is status anxiety atevery level.global islands project:http://bbrace.net/id.html"We fill the craters left by the bombsAnd once again we singAnd once again we sowBecause life never surrenders."

Last week the US Senate passed a new bill that requires companies to disclose whether they are sourcing coltan or other minerals from the DRC or adjoining countries. Companies have to provide details about the measures they have taken to avoid sourcing these minerals from DRC armed groups, which are guilty of massacres and other atrocities. This means that companies like Apple, Dell, HP, Intel and Nokia can no longer wash their hands of this issue.The move by US lawmakers can perhaps be partly explained by commercial motives. The fact that China has become the number one supplier of many important metals has recently raised concern in US and Europe. Increased transparency in mineral industry is likely to increase the mineral prices, and this might turn mining and other related industries into profitable business again in Europe and US.Although the new law can be seen as a positive first step towards more fair consumer electronics, it can also have negative side effects. The new law might result in a complete boycott of minerals from DRC, which might make the local situation even worse. Also auditing the supply chains is a complex task and probably prone to corruption.According to a report by Finnwatch, the raw materials from Congolese mines are traded by Belgian trading houses to ports in Kenya and Tansania. From there the materials are transported to Thailand, Malesia, India and China where the worlds biggest foundries are located. In the case of Nokia, after the foundry has extracted the metal, there are still 4 or 5 more middlemen before the metal ends up in a ready Nokia product. According to an article in Taloussanomat, Nokia requires their material suppliers not to use minerals from conflict areas, but the new law will require Nokia to do more extensive auditing.Links:U.S. passes landmark reforms on resource transparency:http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/1028/en/u.s._passes_landmark_reforms_on_resource_transparencyChallenging China in Rare Earth Mining:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/business/energy-environment/22rare.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1Finnwatch report:http://www.finnwatch.org/pdf/DRCwebversio.pdfTaloussanomat article (in Finnish):http://www.taloussanomat.fi/yritykset/2010/07/22/nokiaa-epaillaan-verimetallien-kaytosta/201010103/12

original to:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/wikileaks-war-logs-back-storyAfghanistan war logs: Story behind biggest leak in intelligence historyclassified papers found their way to online activistsJuly 25, 2010by Nick Davies (The Guardian)US authorities have known for weeks that they have suffered ahaemorrhage of secret information on a scale which makes even theleaking of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war look limited bycomparison.The Afghan war logs, from which the Guardian reports today, consist of92,201 internal records of actions by the US military in Afghanistanbetween January 2004 and December 2009 – threat reports fromintelligence agencies, plans and accounts of coalition operations,descriptions of enemy attacks and roadside bombs, records of meetingswith local politicians, most of them classified secret.The Guardian's source for these is Wikileaks, the website whichspecialises in publishing untraceable material from whistleblowers,which is simultaneously publishing raw material from the logs.Washington fears it may have lost even more highly sensitive materialincluding an archive of tens of thousands of cable messages sent by USembassies around the world, reflecting arms deals, trade talks, secretmeetings and uncensored opinion of other governments.Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, says that in the last two monthsthey have received yet another huge batch of "high-quality material"from military sources and that officers from the Pentagon's criminalinvestigations department have asked him to meet them on neutralterritory to help them plug the sequence of leaks. He has not agreedto do so.Behind today's revelations lie two distinct stories: first, of thePentagon's attempts to trace the leaks with painful results forone young soldier; and second, a unique collaboration between theGuardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel magazine in Germany tosift the huge trove of data for material of public interest and todistribute globally this secret record of the world's most powerfulnation at war.The Pentagon was slow to engage. The evidence they have now collectedsuggests it was last November that somebody working in a high-securityfacility inside a US military base in Iraq started to copy secretmaterial. On 18 February Wikileaks posted a single document – aclassified cable from the US embassy in Reykjavik to Washington,recording the complaints of Icelandic politicians that they were beingbullied by the British and Dutch over the collapse of the Icesavebank; and the tart remark of an Icelandic diplomat who described hisown president as "unpredictable". Some Wikileaks workers in Icelandclaimed they saw signs that they were being followed after thisdisclosure.But the Americans evidently were nowhere nearer to discovering thesource when, on 5 April, Assange held a press conference in Washingtonto reveal US military video of a group of civilians in Baghdad,including two Reuters staff, being shot down in the street in 2007by Apache helicopters: their crew could be heard crowing about their"good shooting" before destroying a van which had come to rescue awounded man and which turned out to be carrying two children on itsfront seat.It was not until late May that the Pentagon finally closed in on asuspect, and that was only after a very strange sequence of events. On21 May, a Californian computer hacker called Adrian Lamo was contactedby somebody with the online name Bradass87 who started to swap instantmessages with him. He was immediately extraordinarily open: "hi... howare you?… im an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern bagdad… if you had unprecedented access to classified networks, 14 hours aday, 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?"For five days, Bradass87 opened his heart to Lamo. He described howhis job gave him access to two secret networks: the Secret InternetProtocol Router Network, SIPRNET, which carries US diplomatic andmilitary intelligence classified "secret"; and the Joint WorldwideIntelligence Communications System which uses a different securitysystem to carry similar material classified up to "top secret". Hesaid this had allowed him to see "incredible things, awful things …that belong in the public domain and not on some server stored in adark room in Washington DC … almost criminal political backdealings …the non-PR version of world events and crises."Bradass87 suggested that "someone I know intimately" had beendownloading and compressing and encrypting all this data and uploadingit to someone he identified as Julian Assange. At times, he claimedhe himself had leaked the material, suggesting that he had takenin blank CDs, labelled as Lady Gaga's music, slotted them into hishigh-security laptop and lip-synched to nonexistent music to cover hisdownloading: "i want people to see the truth," he said.He dwelled on the abundance of the disclosure: "its open diplomacy… its Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth … itsbeautiful and horrifying … It's public data, it belongs in the publicdomain." At one point, Bradass87 caught himself and said: "i can'tbelieve what im confessing to you." It was too late. Unknown to him,two days into their exchange, on 23 May, Lamo had contacted the USmilitary. On 25 May he met officers from the Pentagon's criminalinvestigations department in a Starbucks and gave them a printout ofBradass87's online chat.On 26 May, at US Forward Operating Base Hammer, 25 miles outsideBaghdad, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst named Bradley Manningwas arrested, shipped across the border to Kuwait and locked up in amilitary prison.News of the arrest leaked out slowly, primarily through Wired News,whose senior editor, Kevin Poulsen, is a friend of Lamo's and whopublished edited extracts from Bradass87's chatlogs. Pressure startedto build on Assange: the Pentagon said formally that it would liketo find him; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, saidhe thought Assange could be in some physical danger; Ellsberg andtwo other former whistleblowers warned that US agencies would "doall possible to make an example" of the Wikileaks founder. Assangecancelled a planned trip to Las Vegas and went to ground.After several days trying to make contact through intermediaries, theGuardian finally caught up with Assange in a café in Brussels where hehad surfaced to speak at the European parliament.Assange volunteered that Wikileaks was in possession of severalmillion files, which amounted to an untold history of Americangovernment activity around the world, disclosing numerous importantand controversial activities. They were putting the finishing touchesto an accessible version of the data which they were preparing to postimmediately on the internet in order to pre-empt any attempt to censorit.But he also feared that the significance of the logs and some ofthe important stories buried in them might be missed if they weresimply dumped raw on to the web. Instead he agreed that a small teamof specialist reporters from the Guardian could have access to thelogs for a few weeks before Wikileaks published, to decode them andestablish what they revealed about the conduct of the war.To reduce the risk of gagging by the authorities, the databasewould also be made available to the New York Times and the Germanweekly, Der Spiegel which, along with the Guardian, would publishsimultaneously in three different jurisdictions. Under thearrangement, Assange would have no influence on the stories we wrote,but would have a voice in the timing of publication.He would place the first tranche of data in encrypted form on a secretwebsite and the Guardian would access it with a user name and passwordconstructed from the commercial logo on the cafe's napkin.Today's stories are based on that batch of logs. Wikileaks hassimultaneously published much of the raw data. It says it has beencareful to weed out material which could jeopardise human sources.Since the release of the Apache helicopter video, there has been someevidence of low-level attempts to smear Wikileaks. Online storiesaccuse Assange of spending Wikileaks money on expensive hotels (ata follow-up meeting in Stockholm, he slept on an office floor); ofselling data to mainstream media (the subject of money was nevermentioned); or charging for media interviews (also never mentioned).Earlier this year, Wikileaks published a US military document whichdisclosed a plan to "destroy the centre of gravity" of Wikileaks byattacking its trustworthiness.Meanwhile, somewhere in Kuwait, Manning has been charged under USmiitary law with improperly downloading and releasing information,including the Icelandic cable and the video of Apache helicoptersshooting civilians in Baghdad. He faces trial by court martial withthe promise of a heavy jail sentence.Ellsberg has described Manning as "a new hero of mine". In his onlinechat, Bradass87 looked into the future: "god knows what happens now …hopefully, worldwide discussion, debates and reforms. if not … we'redoomed."

----- Forwarded message from mez breeze <netwurker-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> -----From: mez breeze <netwurker-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: _?The Old Spice Guy?: Presencing & Synthapticism In Action_Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:53:30 +1000To: nettime-l <nettime-l-fO7mttO5ZDI< at >public.gmane.org>_?The Old Spice Guy?: Presencing & Synthapticism In Action_http://bit.ly/96Lakc- < at >netwurkerIn 2008, several articles at augmentology.com examined the concepts ofSynthetic Presencing and Synthapticism. Both concepts are part of atheoretical framework that attempts to explain developing cultural >augmentological patterns. Presencing embodies a rethink of conventionalentertainment modes: "...Fiction and non-fiction classifications are designed to map toboundaries of known forms [think: cinema, literature, television and music].They are so designed to provoke audience responses introspectively andexternally. Current synthetic practices are refashioning this entertainmentbase via the perpetuation of types of unintentional and deliberatelyaugmented recreation. These recreation types are reliant on immediacy ofresponse, play, and Pranksterism. They employ Sandboxing, Gonzoism andspontaneous engagement. This type of entertainment is termed _Presencing_.Presencing involves loose clusters of pursuits that evolve in, or areassociated with, synthetic environments. Examples include the StreisandEffect, Supercutting, Flashmobbing, the Slashdot Effect?Geohashing, Imagemacro generation and Internet meme threading?Presencing showcases accidentalor reflexive entertainment elements where the fictional/non-fictional divideis erased; associated validity qualifiers are also removed andreconceptualised. Amateur production is equated with valued expression.Presencing also offers adaptive potential for augmented attempts atmediating geophysical constraints."The complementary concept of Synthapticism involves: "?Crowdsourcers [who] produce clusters of user-mediated data throughsurges of concentrated attention? Synthetics display attentional surgesappropriate to synthaptic shiftings. Synthetic environments operate inaccordance with this surge potentiality, with users adopting platforms thatoffer a contemporary catering for the relevant surge?Synthapticism producesunprecedented connections between synthetic participants. Adjunctiverelationships are constructed via Identity interfacing and cushioned bysupport networks with a comparable emotional weighting to those found intraditional sociocentric structures[acquaintance>friendship>family>community]. Synthaptic communication mayappear as fractured or trivial to those not connected synthaptically??One contemporary example of a Presencing/Synthaptic Campaign centres on aPR-created character called ?The Old Spice Guy? or < at >OldSpice. This campaign,which makes extended use of social media > network dynamics, initializedwith a Synthaptic threading system directly developed from conventionaladvertising: "...Anything is possible when you smell like an Old Spice man and ourhero, Isaiah Mustafa, is back to illustrate just a few of the amazing thingsthat an Old Spice man can do. The latest effort is a fully integratedcampaign with TV, print and digital executions, targeted at both men andwomen...." [ http://www.wk.com/campaign/questions ]On July 13th 2010 [USA Portland time] the Old Spice brand extended this?personalised? social presence/character via synthetically dependentplatforms including Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook. ?The Old SpiceGuy? character urged cross-platform users to AMA [a popular internet threadon several boards which means "Ask Me Anything"]. The humorous > quirkyresponses included almost instantaneous < at >OldSpice micro-video answers toselected users, including meta-referencing by Isaiah Mustafa himself [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-qpEUOtLk8 ].One response that encapsulates the Synthaptic aspects of this campaign beganwith the user < at >Jsbeals asking < at >OldSpice to make a marriage proposal on hisbehalf [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-fLV28SkZ8 ]. < at >Jsbeals latertweeted that his girlfriend had accepted the proposal: "< at >Jsbeals: < at >OldSpice SHE SAID YES!!!!"?.and who then changed his Twitter Biography to: "The Old Spice proposal was real. Thank you Old Spice for helping mewith this."A second response set resulted in the sending of actual/geophysical roses[referenced in a micro-video response] to Alyssa Milano. Each episodicresponse illustrates the flattening of traditional entertainment factors[think: < at >OldSpice responding to "everyday" users as well as more establishedHollywood/Internet celebrities]. The campaign realigns passive entertainmentconstruction and distanced absorption via real-time Immediation andRegenerative Comprehension [ http://bit.ly/JvGs3 ]. The Old Spice GuySynthaptic threading is currently ongoing with replies continually beingposted via Youtube. [Updated via Owen Lokan: the campaign has now finished].

MASSE MENSCH GERMANY: FROM LOVE PARADE TO LOVE STAMPEDE or how love was lost in a crowdJuly 24, 2010 by Tjebbe van TijenThis is just the text version; the illustrated and linked version can be found athttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/masse-mensch-germany-from-love-parade-to-love-stampede-or-how-love-was-lost-in-the-crowd/FROM LOVE PARADE TO LOVE STAMPEDE 15 death (number saturday evening late) in a traffic tunnel in Duisburg/Germany – such news does not come as a surprise – such things were bound to happen with the massified need of people to congregate physically as an answer to the paradox of a virtual and electronic interconnected world and personal feelings of isolation. With the new media there seems to be no bounds when it comes to the exploitation of loneliness. The logistic management of human bodies for crowds beyond one hundred thousand people is a science still in its infancy, which apparently lays outside the limited and eager scope of mass event entrepreneurs and the civil authorities that support their enterprise.[Picture: This still image is from a 4-D interactive model of crowd evacuation dynamics in a dense urban setting, used to explore individual and collective behavior under emergency scenarios]There is a price to sheer unlimited mobility and connectivity amplified by the need and greed that make people wanting to meet in such numbers.[Still from Raw Video: 15 Killed in Mass Panic in Germany on YouTube... ]I have to think back at the German playwright Ernst Toller and his world famous theatre drama from 1920: “Masse Mensch” which warns against faceless massification… Let me cite the chorus”THE MASSES:We, eternally wedged intoCaverns of towering houses,We, abandoned to mechanisms of mocking systems,We, faceless in the night of tears,We eternally severed from our mothers,When will we live in love?When will we work our will?When will we be saved?”[Advertisement of today... this web site still had a link to buy a ticket for 29 Euro...]Just selected a fragment from one of my 2008 scroll projects, “Dionysia & other Pleasure Parades”, as a counter point image. One sees the ‘Siegesäule’ in Berlin towering over the masses- a few years ago – masses that by commercialism have been redirected to their tunnel of death in Duisburg: from Parade to Stampede…[detail Love Parade Berlin...]“When will we live in love?” is the question from 1920 by Toller, posed – once again – 90 years later. I am not afraid to go against the fashionable current of the quest for ever and ever bigger, more loud and more grandiose events… at a certain scale a party becomes a war and a parade will become a death march. Let’s run away from the the crowd barriers and throw a party within the horizons of our limited means of human communication, affection and pleasure, to be lovable with our own and other faces recognisable once again.

The linked and illustrated version can be found athttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/embedded-journalism-needs-wikileaks-to-wash-its-dirty-face/WikiLeaks Afghanistan are result & product of embedded journalism. Embedded journalism is an euphemism for ‘state propaganda’, so in cases of warrior states it is about the role of media as ‘state propaganda’, as ‘war propaganda instruments’. Who benefits? is the ultimate question and time will answer that. Though we may speculate… Withdrawal needs its path to be prepared… and news media need to wash their face after a dirty operation …. So this leak may serve two purposes: withdrawal from war and a media face wash.

in.the.cavity.of.the.flesh.ionosphere.-http://www.alansondheim.org/cavity.mp4into.the.cavity.of.the.telephone;.in.this.position.it.will.be.found.to.fitthe.cavity.of.the.carpeted.house.of.Yeshu(?),.in.the.third.platform.sixtyWherefore.as.from._cavum_.'hollow'.come._cavea_.'cavity,'.and._caullae_for.example.-.the.smaller.bottles.kept.in.a.shallow.cavity.on.the.showermmoving.up.and.down.inside.the.uterine.cavity,.and.in.a.day.or.two,.the.highest.conjunction.-I.imagine.at.this.conjunction.of.concavity/curl.and.rock/top.nexus.of.this.and.every.other.Great.Circle.connecting.myself.to.the.illumination.of.theionosphere,.resonance.of.the.earth-twitching,.and.the.womb,.the.closelyinfinite.walls.of.the.womb.or.matrix,.the.basin.of.our.lives,.illuminated.from.the.ionospheric.cavity.-.resonance.of.the.wandered.earth.-The.slough.of.air.illuminated.the.cavern,.this.body.long.with.basin,.with.concavity,.with.thing,.this.cave.of.flesh,.of.tissue,.of.organ-organelle,the.basin.of.ourr.lives,.our.flame,.our.blood,.our.dragon,.our.genie,.amber,.our.smoke,.rare.gemstones.among.the.staff.the.stiffened.ground,.illuminated.by.water,.caverns.of.water,.shell.body,.the..basin.of.our.lives.-The.slough.of.air,.oh.soft,.the.flesh.of.the.world,.the.womb,.Sun.Goddess.in.hir.Cave-Cavern,.Amaterasu-omikami.of.invisible.sun,.organ-organelle.-

Hi,I have been lurking sometime, but feel I might be able to add to this discussion wiith respect to wikileaks.In November 09 I curated and participated in an exhibition called Dark Places. The project I developed for this, and that I am working on with Office of Experiments (an independent collaborative research and contemporary art structure) is called the Overt Research Project. The project uses experimental techniques, fieldworks and GPS technology to create a database that maps secret and intelligence space in the UK (Dark Places), and that that visually documents them on the ground (photographs), turning the technology and the gaze back on its developers. As part of my research for the first phase of the project I acquired a collection/archive of documents, that amongst other things, contains formerly classified documents of over 30 years of experiments undertaken on the public (and with US M ilitary) at Porton Down - a secret chemical and bio-chemical warfare research facility in Wiltshire in the UK.The archive, researched and donated to the Office by independent researcher and activist Mike Kenner was given in digital form and then printed out so that it can be accessed - in person only - at sites or by agreement. Documents were largely obtained through official lines with Cabinet Office and through FOI requests. Whilst the work has a different level of classification from the documents obtained by wikileaks and Assange (who according to the Guardian received no payments for materials for publication...? and for more on Secrecy and Classifications subtleties see work of Dr. Brian Balmer - UCL Sciene and Technology Studies), these were nonethless suitably sensitive that the physical route for access seemed to be the best way to control and regulate access. This Archive has been digiti sed at source by Mike, and then catalogued and ordered by OOE before being 'facsimilied' - and can be loaned out for display in physical space, or perhaps as part of a mobile library. It is the founding archive of what we are calling our 'ARC' - Autonoumous Researcher Collection, for archives and collections of researchers unlikely to enter into conventional institutions. (anyone with ideas on other resources please let me know)However, what is most interesting to me about this archive, in light of wikileaks, is the way in which Mike Kenner himself has become what Dr. Gail Davis at UCL has termed 'roadkill' (term roadkill from a paper by Mike Michaels). So it happens that now, any person who is now interested in getting info from Porton Down, is now given Mikes telephone number - he has been co-opted, without permission. His status has shifted and he has had to change his perception of himself and how others see him. Working with Mike (who is also a 'news' source), and seeing how he operates, through online networks and in encounters with Security Services, is to get a glimpse into a grey world of course, but it is clear and he acknowledges this, that it requires some roadkill. Here we have collisions between rea l and physical space. For me this throws up some very significant cultural and theoretical questions, about divisions in what could be the physical/virtual divide, but which is also has a te mporal and spatial dimension for artists. How we mediate leaks or inormations, how we either perceive or can become 'roadkill', and what we imagine this roadkill constitutes, and its relationship to truth and liberty, as well as perosnal and collective identity, is of course the function of media practitioners, artists and activists, alike to question and interrogate - these are the contemporary aesthetics of every day life.I look forward to following this ebb and flow of data, as in my experience, it is not the material or objects that we should be observing, but the ways in which it is suppressed and revealed. I have learned from Mike, it is in rumour and counter rumour that this behaviour throws up a broader patterns of events - to refer back to Virillio, the speed and the interval of the traffic we need to navigate, and which sometimes leads to roadkill.If you are interested in knowing where Mike Kenner Archive will be exhibitied next, or in Dark Places database, please send me an email at info-lPLX50r3VZzYtjvyW6yDsg< at >public.gmane.orgNeal WhiteSoon to be updated websites...Office of Experiments - www.o-o-e.orgNeal White - www.nealwhite.orgAssociate ProfessorArt and Media PracticeThe Media SchoolBournemouth UniversityTel: 0044 (0)1202 961452whiten-TlTST82AdmQOpSFC+208YVpr/1R2p/CL< at >public.gmane.org________________________________________<...>BU - the UK's Number One New UniversityThe Guardian University Guide 2009 & 2010This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. otterAny views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.

New Dutch conspiracy to reinstate the Insula BatavorumJuly 29, 2010 by Tjebbe van Tijenthe illustrated & linked version can be seen & read athttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/new-dutch-conspiracy-to-reinstate-the-insula-batavorum/While most of the multi-cultural minded Dutch nation are happily on vacation a conspiracy is taking shape in all secrecy under the leadership of Batavian chieftain Beatrix Lubbers to join the cohorts of VVD, CDA and PVV into a force to reverse history and to isolate the Netherlands from the rest of the world by reinstating the mythical ‘ Insula Batavorum‘ *) of Roman times … “Down with the non Batavian Allochtoons” they shout when they cross their swords.[image The Conspiration of the Bataves a painting of 1662 by Rembrandt van Rijn]===*) Source Wikipedia: “In the 16th-century invention of a suitably antique origin myth for the Dutch people that would be expressive of their self-identification as separate from their neighbors in the national struggle with Spain of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence, the Batavians came to be regarded as their eponymous ancestors.[6] The mix of fancy and fact in the Cronyke van Hollandt, Zeelandt ende Vriesland (called the Divisiekronike), first published in 1517, brought the spare remarks in Tacitus’ newly-rediscovered Germania to a popular public; it was being reprinted as late as 1802.[7] Contemporary Dutch virtues of independence, fortitude and industry were rendered fully recognizable among the Batavians in more scholarly history represented in Hugo Grotius’ Liber de Antiquitate Republicae Batavicorum (1610). The myth was perpetuated by Romeyn de Hooghe’s Spiegel van Staat der Vereenigden Nederlanden (“Mirror of the State of the United Netherlands”, 1706), which also ran to many editions, and it was revived in the atmosphere of Romantic nationalism in the late eighteenth-century reforms that saw a short-lived Batavian Republic and, in the colony of the Dutch East Indies, a capital (now Jakarta) that was named Batavia. Modern variants of the Batavian founding myth are made more credible by pointing out that the Batavians were only part of the ancestry of the Dutch people, together with the Frisians, Franks and Saxons, and by tracing patterns of DNA. Echoes of this supposed cultural continuity may still be found in popularisations of the history that follows.”Tjebbe van TijenImaginary Museum ProjectsDramatizing Historical Informationhttp://imaginarymuseum.orgweb-blog: The Limping Messengerhttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/

BEHIND THE NEWS with Doug Henwood"Best Music on an Economics & Politics Radio Show"Village Voice Best of NYC 2005many opening commentaries at:<http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/>--------------------------------------------------Just posted to my radio archive (and apologies for the delay)<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>:July 22, 2010 Yves Smith, keeper of the Naked Capitalism blog and author of Econned, on the contribution of the dismal science to the financial crisis, and how Wall Street is worse than ever (rerun of March interview) • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on the Dodd-Frank financial reform billJuly 15, 2010 Corey Robin on Ayn Rand • Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot (just out in paperback!), on the state of the housing marketJuly 8, 2010 Sean Keenan, proprietor of the indie label Blanco Music and author of this great rant, on how music is faring in the Internet era • Ruy Teixeira, author of this paper, on how demographics favor the Dems (for what that’s worth) • Bill Hartung on military spending todayJuly 1, 2010 Cynthia Enloe, splendid analyst of gender and the militarization, on the McChrystal affair • Richard Seymour, author of The Meaning of David Cameron, on the new British governmentJune 24, 2010 Matthew Lasar on Pacifica governance • Max Fraser, author of this Nation article, on Andy Stern & SEIU • Keith Gessen and Hedge Fund Man, collaborators on Diary of a Very Bad Year, talk about the wacky bubble daysthey join:---------June 17, 2010 Gary Rivlin, author of Broke USA, on how sleazy businesses make bundles by lending to the poor • Sarah Ellison, author of War At the Wall Street Journal, on Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Dow JonesMay 29, 2010 (KPFA only) Norman Finkelstein, author of This Time We Went Too Far, talks about Israel’s invasion of Gaza in late 2009, and about changing U.S. public opinion towards that countryMay 8, 2010 (KPFA version) DH on conspiracism (cont.) • Emily Gould, blogger and author of The Heart Says Whatever, on the new media world, kids today, etc. • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on how Wall Street gets its way in DCApril 29, 2010 DH on conspiracism • Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, hedge fund trader, on the Eurocrisis • Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace USA, on climate politics and the oil spillApril 22, 2010 Mark Weisbrot of CEPR on Latin America • Steve Early on the departure of Andy Stern from SEIUApril 15, 2010 Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute on how China’s currency manipulation kills American jobs (paper here) • Matt Taibbi on how Wall Street ripped offJefferson County, Alabama, and the U.S. governmentApril 8, 2010 Diane Ravitch, former conservative educational reformer turned critic of the privatization agenda and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System, on the awfulness of the now-bipartisan scheme of testing, charters, union-busting, etc.April 3, 2010 (KPFA version) Ann Harrison, labor economist at Berkeley, on the effects of the anti-sweatshop campaign on Indonesian footwear workers • Steven Hill, author of Europe’s Promise, on the Old World as an economic model for the U.S.March 25, 2010 Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity on the science and politics of climate change • Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on the health care abominationMarch 18, 2010 Greg Albo, Sam Gindin, and Leo Panitch of York University, authors of In and Out of Crisis, on the current economic mess: origins, consequences, possibilities---Doug HenwoodProducer, Behind the NewsThursdays, 5-6 PM, WBAI, New York 99.5 FMSaturdays, 10-11 AM, KPFA, Berkeley 94.1 FM"best music on a show about economics & politics" - Village VoiceLeft Business Observer242 Greene Ave - #1CBrooklyn, NY 11238-1398 USA+1-347-599-2211 voice+1-917-865-2813 cellemail: <mailto:dhenwood-VmQCmMdMyN0AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>web: <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>podcast: <http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/radio-feed.php>iTunes: <http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73801817>or <http://tinyurl.com/3bsaqb>Facebook group: <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53240558375>."blog": <http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/>--------------------------------------------download my book Wall Street (for free!) at<http://www.wallstreetthebook.com>