Complimentary currencies for social change

From Nexus, via Kuro5hin :

RD: People think of someone who works with currencies as being a materialist. Yet it sounds as if your interests are towards social change through complementary currencies. How did you come to be interested in this other dimension?

BL: The reason I went to the Central Bank in the first place was to check whether it was possible to improve the conventional money system from within. I had been working for a number of years in South America, and I had seen the damage that the existing money system has created on a huge scale in Latin America.

[...]

RD: So the Third World is just being abandoned?

BL: Yes. Entire continents. Africa for instance has been dropped off the world economic map for most practical purposes.

RD: And re-envisioning and re-engineering money itself could change this?

BL: Correct. And the good news is that such re-engineering of money has started to happen if one knows where to look.

A fascinating look at what one presumes is an endangered species: a technocrat interested in a form of social change other than his own upward mobility. Concepts such as "innovation" in both monetary policies and in currencies themselves are entirely foreign to most amateur economists such as myself -- and, according to the interview, most professionals also.

Weblogs, ISSNs and legitimacy

From Fawny.org :

You can apply for and use an International Standard Serial Number for your Weblog. Your blog will then officially exist in the worldwide standardized encyclopedia of periodicals.

[...]

With over 60,000 Weblogs in publication today �– almost 10% of all the periodicals ever registered �– loggers have an unusual opportunity to make their presence known in the only arena that librarians respect: Official enumeration. Remember, as far as librarians are concerned, if it doesn�’t have some kind of number, it doesn�’t exist.

Registrars in some countries habitually reject bloggers' applications, though apparently the National Library and Archives of Canada is among the more permissive of the bunch. Apparently journal-style blogs have a stronger case for registration (as 'memoirs') than filter-style publications, although both meet the official requirements.

As Joe Clark (no, not the Tory MP - the proprietor of Fawny) points out, an ISSN carries with it a sense of legitimacy as well as the advantages inherent in an official, standardized indexation. I would urge any serious publisher of online periodicals to apply for one; in time, it will hshepherdpher the 'blogging phenomenon' from an easily-dismissed tech trend into the realm of respectability.

[edit]

The NLC's response to my attempt:

At the moment, we are no longer assigning ISSNs to weblogs, but we are keeping the situation under review.

Fair enough. I wonder what their litmus test is for the 'seriousness' of a web publication, as opposed to a printed newsletter. If it is it possible to register a regularly-updated, but photocopied and hand-delivered 'zine', then splitting hairs between weblogs and online magazines might be questionable. Still,curiositysity is aroused - I have a new public policy quirk to mull over.

Arnold got head, felt "like King Kong"

From The Smoking Gun :

Arnold Schwarzenegger once told a magazine interviewer about participating in an orgy with other bodybuilders, noting that "everybody jumped on" the woman involved and "took her upstairs where we all got together." [...]

Now that's the kind of honesty I look for in a Republican. No need to pay off illegitimate black love-children (eh, Strom?), or continually obfuscate. Oh, right - the interview is from 1977. If he can jujitsu this into some sort of advantage, Arnie will become my new political idol.

Cinephile, or chucklehead?

Bill Maher, from Salon:

DVDs, you see, are evil because they now account for over half the money Hollywood makes, and they're all bought by the young, dumb, car-crash-loving male demographic, the same one that's given us MAXIM magazine, attention deficit disorder and George Bush. Also, since the little teenage darlings who control all media are not old enough to see R-rated movies, our entire culture is now PG-13 -- the kind of blended-down mush designed to be as inoffensive as possible to the widest group possible, the same theory that made airline food what it is today. And that's what movies are now: airline food.

But... But... But... I like DVD's! Of course, I still fall within the upper bounds of the Maxim generation, which might explain (if not excuse) my urge to buy so many of them. Thankfully I don't gravitate toward PC-13, car crash, hip hop idol, teen gross-out genres any longer but the influence of such people is painfully obvious when you walk into any HMV or Future Shop.

All of the discs that are on sale (two for $40, etc.) are recent box office disappointments, while most flicks with artistic merit or less than 'mainstream' appeal are relegated to the dusty back aisles, and run well into the mid-$30s. All the more reason to shop online, right? [yes, I'm a whore].

Ernie, Mr. Family Values? Don't tell Bert!

Ontario's Premier on same-sex marriages:

"I think I do have a responsibility and a role to play as Premier of the province to impress upon the federal government that those who are charged with the responsibility of defining marriage ... that they have a role to ensure that churches and religions have their rights protected with respect to what they define as marriage."

That such a fallacious argument has such currency among anti-gay demagogues is telling, to say the least. Every serious proposal to re-define marriage to date has strongly affirmed the right of churches to refuse to marry same-sex couples. That right is protected, and will be protected -- end of story! In the style of neo-conservative from the U.S., these bigots are doing everything they can to give ignorant, confused, and impassioned religious folks the impression that this legislation will oblige their priests, pastors and minister to marry these... these... degenerates.

As Howard Hampton, Ontario's NDP leader, points out in the article I quoted above, Eves would be wading into dangerous waters should he take up the 'family values' banner given that he's once-divorced and now 'living in sin' with his 'long-time companion.' It's a shame that his newfound disdain for marriage (perhaps all marriages, same-sex or hetero) might interfere with the equitable treatment of all Canadians.

"What I skipped this summer"

Discovering witty, refreshing and new (to me) zines always makes me feel avant garde, no matter how well-established they are amongst the hip go-getters of tomorrow. Case in point, The New York Observer. A hard-copy weekly from NYC, it's burdened with 1996-era webdesign but packs plenty of cute articles such as this one.

Thank skee for summer interns:

"There�s a war in Liberia? Oh. I don�t have time to think about anything. I�m busy. I haven�t seen Gigli yet. I�m running a company, and it�s been growing very fast."

- Jonathan Abrams, founder of Friendster.com [...]

"Track suits."

- John Malkovich, actor [...]

"Jessica Lynch. I�m not interested, because I saw Wag the Dog. I�m not interested about whether or not Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are going to stay together after Gigli. I saw Shanghai Surprise."

- Richard Turley, columnist, Avenue

International anti-abortion meddling

From Today's Papers @ Slate:

The NYT notes inside that the administration has cut off funding to a small but well-regarded international AIDS program after charging that it was involved with groups that supported forced abortions. While State Department officials 'acknowledge that they have no evidence' that the group was involved in such practices, they point out that the group worked with a U.N. group, which also doesn't support forced abortions, but did at one point with work the Chinese gov't, which does.

This is beyond absurd. Before, it used to be groups that provided family-planning advice, but that edict mellowed under criticism from just about everyone on earth. Now unfounded allegations of 'supporting forced abortions' through two degrees of separation?

Attention Americans: for the love of all that is holy, vote Dubya out of office when you get the chance or the world may never, ever forgive you for it.

So much for the online music revolution

Why iTunes iSbogus :

Apple's iTunes Music Store is a reasonable deal for independents: they get a new revenue source, and their music is displayed alongside the major labels' with no pay-for-placement. So right now independent labels should take Apple's money, but in the long run iTunes hurts them by shepherding the major labels through a period in which they might easily die. If services like iTunes can force out free filesharing, then the majors survive and independents lose their only chance at a level playing field.

That's right kids, "steal" your music using Kazaa, and send the artist a buck fifty instead - you and your favourite artists both win.

[momentary vitals]
» mood : pre-moving day stressfest
» track : "Human behaviour", Bjork
» text : Noah Levine, Dharma Punx

A search engine you ought to hug

A useful and thought-provoking feature from Daypop:

Word Bursts are heightened usage of certain words in weblogs within the last couple days. They are indicators of what webloggers are writing about right now, in contrast to Top 40 and Top News which are indicators of what webloggers are linking to currently. Word Bursts can frequently indicate current events of interest that are not usually accompanied by links. Sample weblog posts accompany each word burst.

"The most doctrinaire Marxist wouldn't have dared propose it"

From xymphora, quoting Juan Cole:

As things play out so disastrously in Iraq, we are left with only one motivation that continues to control all American actions: the desire to keep the huge redevelopment contracts flowing solely to American companies. Every other part of the grand neocon plan to rule the world is in a shambles, but the stealing of the future wealth of the people of Iraq continues.

The most doctrinaire Marxist wouldn't have dared propose that the most powerful country on earth would be risking huge amounts of wealth, the lives of thousands of its soldiers, and its position of dominance in the world, not to mention the security of its citizens from a massively increased risk of terrorist attack, all to sweeten the balance sheets of a tiny number of corporations with close personal ties to members of the Bush Administration, but that is exactly what is happening."

A taxing discussion

Here's an interesting discussion about tax reform, courtesy of the clubLaurier forums.

... we watch our feet / for cracks in the pavement

I'm not sure what pains me more: walking past people who're down on their luck and offering them nothing more than a lame - if true - excuse, or feeling ashamed of giving them a few quarters instead of emptying my pockets.

But that's my nice-job-enough-credit-to-stave-off-homelessness guilt, which (for better or for wetter) is what defines me, I guess. At least at this point in my life. I think the echo of boomeritis will catch up with me eventually. I'm on a green tea kick, which makes me feel partially hip, but mostly yuppie.

Don't wory, Homer Simpson's in charge...

For anyone curious about Ontario's legion of nuclear power stations dealt with the blackout (poorly, though safely enough it seem), check out this article from the Toronto Star.

[momentary vitals]
» mood - caffenated, jittery
» track - the rumble of office HVAC equipment
» text - morning papers

The coffee sutras

The Coffee Sutras have engaged me, and they won't let go (not that I mind).

I walked around the city this afternoon, my vain attempt to find an open postal outlet (let alone a bona fide Post Office) thwarted by after-effects of the blackout. On Wellington, just past the Chateau Laurier, three children dressed as giant UNICEF boxes were collecting change for, well, UNICEF. Strange memories! When I was young, collecting change for UNICEF was a big deal on Hallowe'en; now, it hardly happens at all (or so I'm told). Even back then, none of our teachers -- the bright-orange boxes were distributed and collected at school -- explained the acronym to us, mentioned that the first two letters stood for 'United Nations', nor talked at length about why we were fundraising. The most a teacher ever said, as I recall, was that my neighbours' spare change would make poor kids elsewhere as happy as lollies and rockets made me. Fair enough, I thought.

Here's the part where I make a sweeping generalization: these days, it seems the only kids interested in social justice are Muslim, or Asian, or just pissed off (I guess I'm in the latter group - or maybe the first two are but subsets of the off-pissed?). Or at least not white, middle-class. White kids raise money to fight comparatively rare, but local, diseases (MS, CF, Chron's/Coalitis) now, rather than gathering local to assist globally. Or are the Muslim kids raising money to fight poverty or build schools in the Middle East because that touches their own experience, 'local' only in an emotional or ethnocultural sense?

When I walked past them, I had a coke in my hand but no change in my pocket. I'm sure my excuses sounded just as hollow as the other folks', truth notwithstanding.

If Eves keeps giving us days off, he'll win the election.

I swear, if Eves keeps giving Ontarioans days off, he'll be a shoe-in for the next election. Of course, he'll probably use the hydro issue as an excuse, a la SARS, to postpone things yet again. I'm hoping against hope that this most recent delay doesn't also carry with it the "rally around the flag" effect that it might South of the border.

As much as it pains me to say it, Eves (and his handlers) are doing a good, American-style job of deflecting blame, staying 'on message', and casting critics as opportunistic (rather than what they really are: folks who've been right all along). By comparison, his Federal counterparts -- Herb Dhaliwal [sp?], David McCallum, and Chretien -- are doing poorly. One wonders how the Liberals have been so successful, when the basic stonewall technique is beyond their capacity.

[momentary vitals]
� mood - smug (CNN, pushing energy conservation?)
� track - that terrible "cameltoe" song, stuck in my head...
� text - Jane Jacobs, The Nature of Economies

POWER OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE --- The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights

[...]

Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.

So where's the President? Just before he landed on the deck of the Abe Lincoln, the White House was so concerned about our brave troops facing the foe that they used the cover of war for a new push in Congress for yet more electricity deregulation. This has a certain logic: there's no sense defeating Iraq if a hostile regime remains in California.

The above article (and the whole site it came from) is an interesting read.

State of emergency & google-tastic calculations

The infamous 'rolling blackouts' are in effect in Ottawa. Power was on in my apartment when I woke up, but it mustn't have been for long: freezies in the freezer weren't frozen.

Like a chump, I got up and went to work in Quebec without checking the news:

The premier declared a state of emergency late Thursday, and urged anyone who could, to take Friday off. Many had no trouble doing so, as the transit systems in both Ottawa and Toronto were operating on reduced service.

D'oh. I suspected as much, but wanted to go in regardless, as I have a report due to the university today and my home computer is about as useful as a massive paperweight for the time being. Hopefully I can get an extension...

In other news, google's seach box can now be used for simple (and not-so-simple) calculations and weights/measures conversion. Give it a shot if you're curious. I suspect this has been up and running for ages, but was only stumbled upon recently - google's site has a brief note about this functionality, to give you a better idea of its full feature-set. It even does imaginary numbers! Ok, enough geeking-out.


[momentary vitals]
��mood - amused by hydro insanity
��track - perfect day, Lou Reed
��text - guidelines on language of work, Department of Canadian Heritage.

This crazy North America-wide power outage has essentially stranded me at work... I have a large, important report to finish tonight, too. My workplace in Gatineau has hydro, but my apartment in Ottawa doesn't.

You might think this would be an opportune time to bust out the super-secret caffeine reserves and get down to business on that report, but you'd be wrong: curiosity has me glued to the CBC, compulsively refreshing and waiting for updates.

The Creative Commons content license scheme has caught my interest - if you write, shoot, sing, play or turn-your-head-and cough for the web, you might want to check it out.