Robert Paterson's Weblog

Ken Dryden - Not politics as usual

I did not vote in the last federal election. This was the first since I have been of age that I did not vote. I did not vote because I feel that my vote no longer counts. I mean that my vote no longer counts because politics has become an entirely self centered thing where power for its own sake is all that there is. The great issues of our time - the environment, global cultural conflict, energy, kids are off the table. Instead there is only work to shore up the interests of those that control the status quo.

My only hope is Ken Dryden - a man who knows that he is a man. A man who is "awkward" in politics. A man who finds spin and rhetoric impossible. I have met him many times now in my work with children and we usually commiserate with each other about how what is truly important is off the table.

Here is part of an interview he gave with the National Post this week - it is what we talk about when we meet.

Doesn’t have the “killer instinct.”  Politics is a rough sport, you know.  Gotta go into the corners with your elbows up.

Really?

Do you know what going into the corners is really about? It’s to get the puck! Go in with your elbows up, you’re off for two minutes – and they get it. The best, the best, know what the prize is, then go after it, get it, then do something with it. Just like those who are the best at politics.

After the last election, we – as a party, as citizens – said we needed to do politics differently. Except political and media insiders looked at each other, winked, and said, “But politics doesn’t work that way.”

Who says?  Why not?  Has anybody tried?  Has anybody asked the public?

Has anybody wondered why the public is disgusted with politics? Big important things – Afghanistan, the future of our aboriginal peoples, global warming – and what do they see? The shouting, laughing, backslapping; the name-calling and disrespect – the stupid political games. This is how politics works? Who does it work for?

Anybody asked the public?

I always thought politics was about people. People who aren’t doing very well and need a boost; people who are doing well and can do even better. If it isn’t about that, why do it? It’s a lousy life. But if it is about people, it’s great. It’s taking that instinct that’s in all of us – to help others – that we express every day in our service clubs and church groups, and give it a big chance, with all the power of government behind it....

This is stop-the-spinning, get-real time. The stakes in the next election are clear – it’s Kyoto or it’s not; Kelowna or it’s not; child care or it’s not. It’s a generous, inclusive, connecting Big Canada, or it’s not. For those who are voting this weekend to select delegates to Montreal, remember, it is your vote, your decision. Nothing’s been decided. It is up to you. And that everyone elected as a delegate to Montreal is really a surrogate for the 32 million Canadians who are not there. We have to give ourselves our best chance to win. We owe that to Canadians.

Eels on PEI - Sign of the Times

It's Saturday - time to go to the market and get my Omega 3 fix from Kim.

Many this time of year also stuff themselvs with smoked Eel. Not your cup of tea? Well that's ok but there again maybe it isn't.

The Eel are late. It's too warm.

Confirming a trend that has manifested itself over the last few years, we have had unusually warm waters up here on the Canadian East Coast. Last year was the first year in living memory when Prince Edward Island was not surrounded by ice in the winter.

Eel are fascinating fish. Females can wait years, before they venture from the lakes and estuaries into the Ocean to breed (the reverse of salmon).  A few things need to be in place before they start moving: colder water temperatures, increased wind and…..a full moon. Why do some fish wait years before they venture out? You might have heard of “Silver Eel”. These eel are not a seperate species, but mature and migrating females.  In order to migrate, they need to reach body fat level of 32%. At this point, all their energy is dedicated to breeding. Their skin becomes silvery and their bellies are plump. They also start tasting delicious when smoked. The high fat content ensures good moisture when the fish is smoked and the meat starts to dehydrate. Silver Eel are the only Eel we use and currently, there are none coming out the rivers.  The water is still too warm.

We have had the same problem with Makerel. The season is at last upon us, but late. Usually, Makerel is being fished in August, it is now the end of September.

So how does global warming affect you? I might delay that smoked Eel you had ordered by a full month.

Public Radio - The Young

One of the several Holy Grails of PR is to reach the young.

Well - is this the "Young Grail" (Thanks to Michael Crane)

Are these the attributes of the Young?

Change - Seth's View - Public Radio

Future of Pubic Radio - A New Entity
Seth has a great post today that in summary makes the point that once a new idea - say classical music - has Tipped past the early adopters into the mainstream it gets stuck. I think that a great lesson for Public Radio is to be found here. Snip -

"So classical music gets stuck because the new stuff isn't like the regular kind, the classics. French food got stuck, because no restaurant could risk its 3 stars to try something new. A convention can't change cities or formats. Schools can't start their curriculum over... the culture gets stuck because the masses want it be stuck.

That's because the late adopters and the laggards have plenty of money and influence--while the early adopters have a short attention span and rank low in persistence.

Inside most fields, we see pitched battles between a few people who want serious change to reinvigorate the genre they love--and the masses, who won't tolerate change of any kind. Hey, there are still people arguing vehemently about whether Mass should be in Latin or not.

History has shown us that the answer is crystal clear: if you want change, you've got to leave. Change comes, almost always, from the outside. The people who reinvented music, food, technology and politics have always gone outside the existing dominant channels to create something new and vital and important."

Jeff Schmidt picks this up early and suggests that Satellite may be the area of the new where innovation could abound again in public radio. Snip -

"We spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over the Satcasters - but when we look at what they’re doing - they’re trying to change things - to make new things  - the kind of things that simply are not possible in the terrestrial radio world.   That frightens lots of people.  Unnecessarily in my view.   They see the world as “either-or”.

I’ve always thought there was a place for the Satcasters in the audio entertainment world.  Along with mp3 players internet streams etc..

There should be way more minds trying more things in different ways in the sphere of audio entertainment than commercial radio alone."

I would like to go further. The Innovators Dilemma supports Seth's view. If we put the task for innovation inside the system, it will not thrive.

So what about an Internet Channel for Public radio that is run by the rebels and that has the new as its focus?

Base it far away from Washington. It would have an HQ but it would also be distributed. It would offer access to all but have hubs. Run it with the young, as the leaders were in Public radio 30 years ago. Such a channel will be able to deal with the desire for diversity that is at odds with the desire to keep the existing audience happy. Such a channel can change voice and the relationship both with listeners and inside the system of public radio. It would reduce the risks and the costs of the new.

It could be the New NPR where a network of stations and NPR and other Producers can own the new as a child of the old. It would be the place where the young and the adventurous would flock.

If it produced material that got a major audience, it could migrate the show to the "Majors". It could show the Majors how the new interactive worked. It could be the place where the fears and divisions inside public radio can be healed.

It would offer the conditions for success that are not present when Innovation is expected from the old

Accepted - The School You Make Yourself!

My there are some neat small films out that hit the system hard (Idiocracy) - Here David Warlick finds another gem.

"There is a movie in the theaters now called Accepted.  The plot is nearly identical to the 1984 movie, Revenge of the Nerds.  Today, in 2006, slacker, Bartleby Gaines, has been rejected by all of the colleges he has applied to. The obvious culture of his parents’ community is get your child into the BEST university.

Rather than disappoint his parents, Bartleby (played by Justin Long), uses his desktop publishing skills to create his own acceptance letter for a fictitious college, and convinces his best friend (already accepted at the local top-notch school) to build an official looking and functioning web site for the school. His parents are elated, hand him the $10,000 check for first semester’s tuition, and announce how thrilled they will be to drop him off at school.

Now needing a school, he uses the money to lease an abandoned mental hospital, and with friends, (now accepted), cleans up enough of the building to fool their parents. Then, it appears that the web site was more functional than they’d intended, and three hundred entering freshmen show up on the door steps with $10,000 checks.

Then’s when the movie gets interesting, because they decide to start their own college. 

The folks at IMDB love it as well

Humour is so powerful - I am wondering how it will be possible to give films like this a much wider availability than a release. I would sign up for a Movie Club for this type of film. I wonder if an entirely new release system with full length titles could emerge like a cross between iTunes/YouTube/Repertory Theatre that would give the smaller film a much better chance?

I would pay - would you?

UK First Blog TV Station Begins

Well it had to happen.

(Via Sacred Facts)Two of the UK's leading conservative bloggers - Tim Montgomerie and Iain Dale - are planning to launch a political TV channel on the Internet next month. 18 Doughty St TV will launch on October 10th and broadcast for four hours a night.

The Youtube trailer is here

Surely this is just the beginning of a Multiverse like we have never known. It reinforces my growing belief that Content itself will not be enough. Content will move to infinite and to free.

I think that all those in production - NPR!!! Need to question the belief that people will continue to pay for content when they will find so much of it and for  free.

So what then? We have to look for building engagement and attraction. As Michael Goldhaber says - all economies are based on something that is scarce. In ancient history it was land. Recently it was capital. Content is not SCARCE. It is a commodity. What is scarce is attention and meaning.

In the Tipping Point - Gladwell talks of the need for "Stickiness". We see in games today that it is the ability to co create and to participate that is the most sticky attribute.

Participation is not a feature of the new media - it will be the centre piece.

This is why I like the Robin Hammam idea for the BBC so much. His plan is to use a wide filter of bloggers to screen for both meaning and engagement. In his model we see BOTH a filter to create meaning and also Participation. We also see the work has potential to enable the community to get together to do things together - the media is really a call to community - a community that can be local or of interest. But most important a community that wishes to act together. We see this in Guilds in gaming.

Warning - DO NOT OVER INVEST IN UNIQUE ONE WAY CONTENT. Soon no one will pay you for it

School - Back to the Future

Harold is all but there - the back to the future school!!!!

"I find the argument in favour of the one-room schoolhouse quite compelling. I believe that the model is highly suited to our networked information economy and will actually address some of the problems that those who advocate for “back to the basics” or “no child left behind” complain about.

I propose small schools, loosely joined:

• With access to the Internet a one-room school would have to reach out to the rest of the world and not be wrapped in the confines of the industrial school. Schools would have to seek out partnerships and not be isolated islands.
• Communities of learning online could be developed to link learners in several schools and even in different countries.
• No teacher would be able to “master” the subject matter, so teachers would become facilitators of learning, which is what they profess to do anyway .
• Small schools would be integrated into the community and there would be a sense of ownership by the community, not the education system.
• Most children would be able to walk to school, therefore eliminating busses, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging exercise.
• Children and parents could have more than one school to choose from.
• Sales of industrial school buildings could be used as financial capital for the transition.

The one-room school, grounded in its community but linked to a world of learners, is a model that deserves to be tested."

Idiocracy - Satire or Prediction?

I picked up a copy of People Magazine today. As reader who has not looked inside the magazine for maybe 2 years I was struck by the editorial changes. I thought I had been reading a 1970's teen fan magazine. While never more than pap, People is now crap. It is all about body image and personal dysfunction. Who are all these "Celebrities"? Why is being anorexic or abused newsworthy or interesting? What is the social impact of this choice?

Is the trend in editorial dumbing down at People a sign of where we are really going?

I am going to get a DVD of Idiocracy when it is available. It seems that the premise of the film - that our society is being dumbed down at an accelerating rate - see my repost of the concern in the UK about the power of our culture to destroy our children - is far from a Satire but a prediction. Here is a review by Nathan Rabin at the AV Club

In Beavis And Butt-head, that devolution is just suggested; in Idiocracy, it's made dizzyingly literal. A perfectly cast Luke Wilson stars as a quintessential everyman who hibernates for centuries and wakes up in a society so degraded by insipid popular culture, crass consumerism, and rampant anti-intellectualism that he qualifies as the smartest man in the world. Corporations cater even more unashamedly to the primal needs of the lowest common denominator—Starbucks now traffics in handjobs as well as lattes—and the English language has devolved into a hilarious patois of hillbilly, Ebonics, and slang.

Idiocracy's dumb-ass dystopia suggests a world designed by Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, a world where the entire populace skirts the fine line separating mildly retarded from really fucking stupid, and where anyone displaying any sign of intelligence is derided as a fag. Working on a sprawling canvas, Judge fills the screen with visual jokes, throwaway gags, and incisive commentary on the ubiquity of advertising—for instance, with the presidential-cabinet member who works paid plugs for Carl's Jr. into everyday conversations. Like so much superior science fiction, Idiocracy uses a fantastical future to comment on a present in which Paris Hilton is infinitely more famous than Nobel laureates. There's a good chance that Judge's smartly lowbrow Idiocracy will be mistaken for what it's satirizing, but good satire always runs the risk—to borrow a phrase from a poster-boy for the reverse meritocracy—of being misunderestimated.

Kroc? NPR?

The Kroc gift of $225 million to NPR still asks the question of how best to help NPR help public radio.

Alex Beam at The Boston Globe goes for it here

Here is his intro -

"Last week I was listening to Christopher Lydon 's ``Open Source " radio show when former National Public Radio ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin came on the air. Dvorkin reminded us of the huge $225 million gift that NPR received in 2003 from Joan Kroc , the widow of the founder of

McDonald's

. Dvorkin called it the largest gift to a cultural institution in US history.

I thought to myself: This is a big NPR town, with two stations, WBUR-FM and WGBH-FM, vying for audience share. I'm a consumer; I listen to this stuff. So how come I'm not hearing any of that money?

Put another way: Pre-2003, like any serious media concern, public radio was the usual exasperating mix of gold and dross. Androgynous-sounding anchorpeople merchandised inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom with a center-left tilt. The foreign reporting was always good, sometimes superb. Local reporting was and is good here. NPR features were generally strong, and the bourgeois/boomer-friendly culture watch kept you more or less apace of books, movies, and music.

So what has changed? Two hundred twenty-five million dollars later, public radio certainly hasn't gotten worse. But I don't hear that it has gotten any better.........."

Nurture/Nature - Our Children

I am not alone in thinking that our culture of consumerism is at the heart of many of our challenges

Here is a report from the Telegraph in the UK

Junk culture 'is poisoning our children' 
By Ben Fenton

A sinister cocktail of junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling and electronic entertainment is poisoning childhood, a powerful lobby of academics and children's experts says today.   Experts are deeply concerned at the escalating incidence of childhood depression In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, 110 teachers, psychologists, children's authors and other experts call on the Government to act to prevent the death of childhood. They write: "We are deeply concerned at the escalating incidence of childhood depression and children's behavioural and developmental conditions." The group, which includes Philip Pullman, the children's author, Jacqueline Wilson, the children's laureate, her predecessor Michael Morpurgo, Baroness Greenfield, the director of the Royal Institution and Dr Penelope Leach, the child care expert, blames a failure by politicians and public alike to understand how children develop. "Since children's brains are still developing, they cannot adjust. . . to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change," they write. "They still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed "junk"), real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives. "They also need time. In a fast-moving, hyper-competitive culture, today's children are expected to cope with an ever-earlier start to formal schoolwork and an overly academic test-driven primary curriculum. "They are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past." The letter was circulated by Sue Palmer, a former head teacher and author of Toxic Childhood, and Dr Richard House, senior lecturer at the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education at Roehampton University. Mrs Palmer said: "I have been thinking about this for a long time and I just decided something had to be done. "It is like this giant elephant in all our living rooms, the fact that children's development is being drastically affected by the kind of world they are brought up in." She cited research by Prof Michael Shayer at King's College, London, which showed that 11-year-olds measured in cognitive tests were "on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago". "I think that is shocking. We must make a public statement – a child's physical and psychological growth cannot be accelerated. "It changes in biological time, not at electrical speed. Childhood is not a race." The other signatories include Sir Jonathon Porritt, the environmental campaigner, Prof Tim Brighouse, the Commissioner for London Schools and Sir Richard Bowlby, the President of the Centre for Child Mental Health. Mr Morpurgo said: "We have so much anxiety about children, their protection, their care, their education, that this has developed into fear. There is a fear around children, both from schools and politicians, which has led to this target-driven education system. "That has put children into an academic straitjacket from a very early age which restricts creativity and the enrichment of childhood." He condemned the "virtual play" represented by electronic games and internet surfing. "That is where children are getting their ideas from and I find it quite "toxic" and pretty scary for the future." Jacqueline Wilson said: "We are not valuing childhood. I speak to children at book signings and they ask me how I go through the process of writing and I say, 'Oh you know, it's just like when you play imaginary games and you simply write it all down'. "All I get is blank faces. I don't think children use their imaginations any more." Baroness Greenfield is so concerned about the effect of technology on children she has set up an all-party group in the Lords to look into it. The other members are three former education secretaries, Baroness Williams, Baroness Shephard and Baroness Morris.