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Archive for the 'politics' Category

Tea Party? Sweet Potatoes are better

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Some heartening signs. First: Read the Salon.com article, Tea Party people less popular than many other hated minority groups (subtitled: They may want “their country” back, but their country doesn’t really want them): This tiny band of fanatics is largely distrusted and despised by regular Americans, but a terrified media coddles them and pretends they’re […]

Ecothinking and Marx

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

Here’s a plea to connect the dots: watch the 365.org video, consider rising food prices, and read about Marx today. Dare you!

What I said about Victoria BC municipal elections in 2008

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Another article I wrote in the run-up to Victoria BC’s 2008 municipal election is worth re-reading as we head into the 2011 election season. The team we elected in 2008 really bombed. Will 2011 signal a change for the better?

What I said about social media and political engagement in 2008

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Three years ago I published an analysis of how politicians could and should be using social media to engage voters. Read it today and ponder whether my ideas were implemented, say, in Victoria BC, to create real engagement. I say they haven’t.

Canada, Vote for the Internet.

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

We have an election coming up in Canada. Vote for the internet.

Despoliation of the environment, high finance, mountain top removal

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

Two articles that need your attention: one, in the Wall Street Journal, Trader Holds $3 Billion of Copper in London, which describes how some trader is sitting on 80-90% of circa 50% of the world’s exchange-registered copper stockpile, squirreled away in a London warehouse. We don’t think a lot about where those metals come from. […]

Re-entry

Monday, December 6th, 2010

The biggest problem with letting regular blogging slide is re-entry – at least, that’s my experience. For the past month, I let the posts slide …and then eventually dwindle to mere Sunday links updates. I’d like to pull up my socks and re-enter. Here’s a peek into a small piece of what I’ve been up […]

Everything’s a conversation, except when it’s not

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Social media has penetrated even the most conservative institutions (such as real estate, property development, and municipal politics), and from where I’m sitting right now, it looks as if it’s driving a coffin nail of sorts into what was The Cluetrain‘s seminal insight, markets are conversations. That insight, incidentally, was from 1999. And now those […]

Authenticity, sweet confection

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Another passage from Erve Chambers’s Native Tours (which I mentioned in Monday’s post) struck me today. I agree with Chambers’s thinking, and want to relate it to the City of Victoria’s maneuverings around heritage and tourism. But first, Chambers (I’ve added several emphases in bold): We need to ask at this point whether there are […]

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