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The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT, pronounced "wicket") opened Monday in Dubai. If you're heard about the conference, it's likely because many articulate and smart proponents of an open internet have been waving arms and warning of the potential dangers that may come from this meeting. Fight For the Future, an organization focused on mobilizing individuals to the defense of a free and open internet, have switched the Internet Defense League's vaunted "cat signal", urging supporters to stop an internet coup by the International Telecommunications Union, the UN agency responsible for communication technologies.
There are reasons to be concerned about WCIT and about the ITU asserting more control over Internet governance. But there's also a great deal of exaggeration and fear-mongering that's making it hard to see the issues clearly. And one of the reasons offered for defending against an ITU "takeover" is a disturbing one, the idea that the Internet works well enough as it is, and that we should be opposed to any changes that would alter how it functions and is governed.
It's possible to oppose increased ITU involvement in internet governance without demonizing the organization. It's possible to believe this is the wrong venue and wrong mechanism without concluding that the Internet works as well as it ever will and ever could. I'm interested in trying to pull some of these arguments apart because I worry some opponents of WCIT are accepting these arguments as a whole package, not considering their individual merits, and may be swallowing some unhealthy presumptions that hinder future debate about internet governance going forward.
I"m far from expert on the topic of WCIT, so I'm going to point to some of the better arguments I've heard in the past few weeks. (My friend Sunil Abraham tweeted many helpful links earlier today, and I recommend his Twitter feed for WCIT links from various perspectives.) For general background, I'd recommend Jack Goldsmith's "opinionated primer" on the topic. To summarize, Goldsmith (who knows a thing or two about internet governance):
– Because WCIT is about amending international rules through a treaty process, it's a slow, consensus-seeking process that nations can opt out of. In other words, we shouldn't expect US net regulations to change because of it.
– It's relevant not because lasting changes will come out of these meetings, but mostly because it gives us a window into what some nations would like in terms of internet governance, and may seek to accomplish through their own national telecoms laws.
In effect, Goldsmith argues that impact isn't a good reason to pay attention to WCIT, as the gathering is likely to have little direct impact. In that spirit, I want to consider some better and worse reasons to be concerned about the ITU, the WCIT meeting and the broader question of how internet governance is and is not changing.
Good reasons to be concerned about WCIT include:
WCIT is open to member governments and to hundreds of corporate and organization members, but their proposals and deliberations are secret. This makes it very difficult for civil society and the general public to be aware of what's going on in the meeting and to influence the process. As with other international policymaking organizations that work in secret, like the WTO, there's a good case to be made that these organizations need to be pushed to greater transparency before they are given public trust. WCITleaks, a project from Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado, both researchers at George Mason University, is a laudable effort to increase transparency by inviting WCIT participants to share documents in a public repository.
Censorious governments:
Many of the anti-WCIT arguments begin by asserting that China and Russia would like to take over internet governance and manage the global internet in ways that would restrict speech. Those are valid concerns, and both countries will likely negotiate for an internet governance structure that increases state control over net content. That nations attempt to control the internet isn't new, nor is the argument that states should have more influence over net governance – as Milton Mueller points out in this helpful piece, states have been seeking increased roles in internet governance since 1996 and have been thwarted. Their response has been to restrict internet usage within their own countries.
Yes, it would be dreadful if China's internet regulations applied to the whole world. But the current situation isn't great either: countries create their own regulations to control the internet in part because they can't get what they want in international fora. The battle over "internet freedom" has devolved into building expensive and unwieldy tools to invite a small set of Chinese and Iranian users to use the American and European internets, instead of the Chinese internet… a solution that won't and can't scale. The challenge of Chinese censorship is a helpful reminder that we don't have binding international internet regulation, and probably never will. WCIT is worrisome because proposals to control the internet through widespread filtering and corporate regulation (China's approach) or through legal and extralegal intimidation (Russia's approach) may gain adherents and allies, and because nations that haven't taken major steps to regulate the internet may look at these nations as examples to follow. But this is an argument for the US to engage in multinational processes like the ITU, to influence nations still on the fence, not to contest the legitimacy of the process.
The substance of proposals Even if we discount Jack Goldsmith's suggestion that little is likely to come out of WCIT, it's worth considering what potential impact proposals that have been put forth might have on Internet governance, if only to see what rival visions are competing with the status quo. Michael Geist argues that the most significant proposals on the table are not about who controls the internet, but who pays for it. He references a proposal from ETNO, an organization of European telecoms, that would start charging large content providers a carriage fee for delivering content – i.e., YouTube would pay a European network operator to reach European viewers. (Large internet content providers, predictably, hate this proposal. The one defender I've found of the proposal is Jean-Christope Nohias, who offers this stem-winder of a piece, accusing Google and other internet giants of hypocrisy in advocating for a system in which the poor pay money to access wealthy country's networks.)
Dwayne Winseck sees concerns about the ETNO proposal, and other attempts to change internet billing, as overblown, but offers a long list of proposals to worry about, affecting the militarization of the internet, threats to privacy, anonymity and government control. In some cases, the proposals try to solve legitimate threats (like spam) and over-reach in terms of implementation, while at other times, they are simply trying to assert more government control, and bear opposition on principal. But we'd have a more intelligent debate about the future of the internet if we could address proposals individually, rather than attacking the process and the institution of the ITU as a whole.
Here are three reasons I've seen for opposing WCIT and the ITU that I think are unjustified, and may cause long-term harm to our conversations about internet governance.
Fear of multilateralism:
Steven Strauss argues we should oppose WCIT because it has UN sponsorship, and pulls out a laundry list of anti-UN complaints to justify his opposition. He offers faint praise to distinguish the ITU from the UN's "standard meaningless international boondoggles", suggesting that it has real power and might lead to substantial rule changes. But his argument centers on the strong representation of repressive governments on the UN's Human Rights Council.
Yes, the presence of the UAE, Pakistan and Ethiopia on the UNHRC is an embarrassment. But the ITU and the UNHRC are two of dozens of institutions within the UN, and even most critics of the UN don't want to see institutions like UNICEF, the World Food Program or the High Commission on Refugees disappear. Defenders of human rights on the internet often point to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a UN document, as a broadly adopted document that protects freedom of expression. Frank LaRue, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, has been a powerful advocate for protecting online speech. It would be a shame to disrespect the work a figure like LaRue is trying to do by dismissing UN institutions as a whole.
The reason so many controversial issues are being brought up in multilateral venues like the ITU is that existing "multisectoral" internet institutions like ICANN, IANA, IETF and others have had a hard time ensuring broad international representation. Some of the frustration other countries feel about internet governance comes from the slow pace these institutions have taken towards supporting global concerns, like providing full support for non-English domain names and suffixes. My friend Rebecca MacKinnon has an excellent essay on this topic in Foreign Policy, pointing out that there's very little developing world participation in these groups and that they are very slowly finding ways to change their culture to be more welcoming to participants who don't have years of experience in the internet engineering community.
The solution to these problems is not a retreat from multilateralism – it's to find ways that existing internet institutions can better represent voices and perspectives from around the world. The good news is that many of the folks within the IETF, ICANN and other institutions understand this challenge, even if some people attacking the ITU don't.
Because governments should never regulate
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell attributes the success of the Internet to the ITU's failure to oversee it in 1988: "This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time." Only a regulator for an agency as broken and corrupted by corporate influence as the FCC would dare to suggest that the role of a regulator is not to regulate.
How's the FCC's lassez faire policy working out in the US? We've got internet access that's almost four times as expensive as it is in France and roughly one tenth the speed. Why? Largely because the FCC has failed to ensure that markets remain competitive, that open access policies allow small players to build competitive businesses, and that broadband services reach rural areas. Yes, it's fantastic that the internet now reaches over 2 billion people. But we've got more than five billion more people who can't access the internet, which is becoming increasingly important as a space for political discussions, a channel for delivery of government services and a pathway towards education. If regulators want to take seriously the challenge of ensuring universal access, as American regulators did with telephony and electricity in generations past, that's something to be lauded, not dismissed.
Because the Internet is perfect.
This argument is rarely stated outright, though this piece by Mike Masnick in TechDirt does us the favor of making it explicit: "The internet works just fine. The only reason to 'fix' it, is to 'break' it in exactly the way the ITU wants, which is to favor a few players who have done nothing innovative to actually deserve it."
I can think of several ways in which the internet doesn't work just fine. It's too expensive for too many people. In the developing world, it's largely spreading through mobile operators whose pricing makes it unlikely that citizens of these nations will become content creators. The process of peering and interconnection creates a great competitive advantage for large network operators and leaves developing nations with very high charges for access. The current configuration of the Internet neither does a great job of protecting anonymity for those who want and need it, or authenticating identity when it's critical. It's surprisingly fragile to malicious attack like DDoS or accidental misconfiguration.
Do I think the ITU is likely to propose helpful solutions to these problems? No. Do I have good solutions to these complex problems? Not especially. But we have no hope of solving these problems if we declare that the Internet functions perfectly and needs no improvement.
There's a tendency for people who love the Internet to become conservative, almost reactionary, about its governance. We've seen so many good intentioned attempts to improve the Internet fail and know of so many ill-intentioned plans to break the Internet that we may have raised the ad-hoc and improvisational methods of governance that have worked well into natural laws. Breaking the Internet – as some proposals in front of the ITU might well do – would be a bad thing. Concluding that we can never change the Internet for the better would be almost as bad.
I try to keep an eye on stories about PR and lobbying firms that work on behalf of dictatorial governments, like our oil-rich friends in Equatorial Guinea and the ever-complicated nation of Rwanda. (See this recent piece by Geoffrey York for more on Rwanda's use of PR firms and lobbyists.) So this piece by Vijaya Ramachandran on the Center for Global Development blog caught my attention. It discusses the complexity of obtaining information on lobbyists working on behalf of foreign governments and points to a tool developed by the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica, the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker.
Like many of the tools from the Sunlight Foundation, it's both very exciting, and a couple of steps away from what I'd hope it could be. You can poke through and find the six different entities connected to Equatorial Guinea that have hired lobbyists… but it would take some serious legwork to compare how much money different nations are spending on lobbying, and who they're trying to influence.
I got distracted looking at which countries had sought lobbyists in Washington. The answer: pretty much every nation you've ever heard of, and a few you've probably never heard of. Alongside established, UN-recognized nation-states, there are unrecognized states, like Abkhazia, the Sahwari Democratic Arab Republic, Puntland, Nagorno-Karabagh. Most of those are long-standing proto-states that I can place on a map. But I'd never heard of "The People's Republic of Nagalim".
Nagalim is an aspirational state for the Naga people, who are chiefly located in Nagaland, a state in north-eastern India, one of the seven states connected to the rest of the nation by a narrow land bridge (the Siliguri corridor) above Bangladesh. Some of these states are seeking partial or total independence from India, and there's ongoing violence in the region connected with insurgencies. The organizers of Nagalim.us see the Indian state of Nagaland as insufficient, and are seeking an independent Nagalim including parts of India and Burma.
It's unclear what form of governance the Nagalim movement is seeking, beyond independence from India. The National Socialist Council of Nagalim – which maintains Nagalim.us – wants to avoid misconceptions about their identity:
To clarify misconceptions: "national socialist" should not be confused with national socialism, or Nazism. "National" refers to the Naga nation. "Socialist" should not be confused with Communism, Eastern European or Chinese-style socialism. Although modern socialist principles have influenced the Nagas – as they have Western democracies (e.g. social security and medicare in the United States), traditional Naga society emphasized certain collective social principles – sharing, cooperation, lack of a class structure, etc. It is these ideals which the Nagas wish to retain and reinvigorate as they build a modern nation.
Some of the supporters of the Naga people's aspirations would add an additional term to "national" and "socialist": "Christian". American Baptist missionaries were highly active in Nagaland in the late 19th and early 20th century. As a result of their efforts, the Naga people are roughly 90% Christian, and the vast majority (75% of the population of Nagaland State) are Baptist, making Nagaland the most Baptist state in the world, well ahead of strongholds like Alabama or Mississippi. Evangelist and former Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson wonders whether we should refer to Nagalim as "The Baptist Tibet". The plight of the Naga is a popular topic for ASSIST news services, a service that strives to document persecution of Christians around the world.
The lobbyist representing The People's Republic of Nagalim in Washington is Grace Collins, who is referred to on some Nagalim websites as Honorary Ambassador from Nagalim to the US. She doesn't seem shy about using Baptist-influenced language to offer her blessings to Nagalim on the occasion of the nation's 62nd independence day in 2008 (I'm assuming this is independence from the British…) A profile on Naymz.com explains that Ms. Collins began her cultural diplomacy for Nagalim in 1997, and was asked by the National Socialist Council of Nagalim to represent the nation, full-time, in 2003.
And according to her lobbying records, she's been busy. Lobbying disclosures are usually pretty formulaic. Here's an example, from McDermott, Will and Emery, lobbying on behalf of Equatorial Guinea: "to gather information in order to better advise the Foreign Principal on ongoing reforms. Registrant did not advance a specific policy position." That same text is cut and pasted several times into the database – most lobbying disclosures are carefully constructed lawyerspeak, designed to ensure compliance.
Ambassador Collins seems less concerned about compliance, which makes her disclosures a far more interesting read:
On behalf of GPRN/NSCN I attended networking functions that exposed me to a high level of professional. I also hosted the President and his cabinet, talked with congressmens offices, met NGO leaders, and churches. I attended many inauguration parties and committee functions. I am constinuing to raise awareness for the Naga orphans through the Malcolm Project. I went Ramstein, Germany and met with some US army people in order to tie in the Wounded Warriors of our government with the Nagas army. Tha Nagas are creating a goodwill guilt as a way of showing support and honoring our troops as the Naga fought side by side in WI and WII against the Japanese occupation.
The "goodwill guilt" appears to be a quilt, made from remnants of Naga shawls: "Sent Nancy Shinder $100 plus shawl remnants to make a quilt from the Naga government to our US Army in Ramstein, Germany". Cultural diplomacy also involves attempts to make a film:
I decided to break out of lobbying on the Hill and start branching out to Hollywood celebrities to help me. I have been searching for the right script writer and publicists to find a celebrity to champion the Naga cause. I have spoken at the International Society of the Arts Salon in Los Angeles and hosted a Nagalim Discovered Event in Hollywood. Because I was planning to go to Nagaland in February and initially the Indian government gave me a visa, I purchased four tickets and then the Indian government, with no explanation, revoked my visa. I decided to take the Film documentation and Continental Airlines to Small Claims court in Los Angeles for not reimbursing me the cost of my air tickets. The Judge Judy Show found my story and asked me to appear on the show. I did this in order to back door the Nagalim story to 10 million audience.
Collins did appear on the Judge Judy Show, according to a transcript from December 29, 2009, though it's not clear whether the dispute over a canceled airline ticket forwarded the Naga people's cause.
It's easy to poke fun at Collins's disclosures, particularly when they include her cat: "Clarence is my cat. We are putting him in the Wounded Warrior program." But her accounts read like the work of someone trying very, very hard to figure out how best to gain recognition for a country no one has ever heard of.
It's not an easy problem to figure out – state recognition, ultimately, is up to the decisions of other states. Sometimes it's pretty easy for states to make up their mind – Sudan holds a referendum, the majority of people in Southern Sudan vote for independence, and other states recognize the new state. Sometimes, it's much, much messier – Abkhazia is recognized by Russia and by other Russian-aligned self-declared states, including South Ossetia and Transnistria, but not by many other nations. Nagalim is evidently seeking recognition from the US as a main strategy for independence, both because religious ties make recognition more likely and because US recognition might well lead to pressure on India to offer a path to independence.
For those less inclined to improvise, there are firms that focus on helping unrecognized states get recognized. Independent Diplomat specializes in representing states like Somaliland and Western Sahara, as well as the now-recognized Southern Sudan. A profile in the New York Times offers some background on the founder of the organization, and the reasons nations might need to hire a non-profit diplomatic corps.
I have no doubt there are more important stories contained within the data contained within the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, and that most of them are less quirky and more depressing than this story. But sometimes the beauty of data is the snippet that catches your eye, the American Baptists seeking recognition for a state in South Asia through films, cats and quilts.
Robert Neuwirth is bringing new insights to familiar (for him, unfamiliar for most of us) territory in his book, "Stealth of Nations". His previous work, "Shadow Cities" was a plea to take squatter cities and informal settlements seriously, rather than dismissing them as slums. (My review of Shadow Cities is here.) His mission in this new book is for us to reconsider the "informal economy", which he rebrands "System D".
"System D" is an abbreviation for "l'economie de la débrouillardise", a tern coined in French-speaking Africa to refer to a system of "resourceful and ingenious" people who make their livings outside the formal, taxed and regulated economy. Neuwirth rejects the term "informal" because the coiner of that phrase, British anthropologist Keith Hart, included the criminal underground in his term, "the informal economy". Neuwirth wants to celebrate the energy and ingenuity of people who make their living outside formal economic structure, but distinguish those he celebrates from those who are selling drugs or running prostitution rings. The heroes of System D may avoid taxes, smuggle goods or operate without permits, but Neuwirth sees them not as criminals but as hardworking people trying to make a living in systems that are broken and corrupt.
Neuwirth's great strength is as a traveler and storyteller. Like "Shadow Cities", "Stealth of Nation" is packed chock full with stories from the communities he's visited in Brazil, Paraguay, Nigeria, China and the United States. We meet street merchants selling pens and cakes in São Paolo, a handbag manufacturer in Guangzhou and the baker of high-end (if unlicensed) olive oil cake in New York City. He takes a particularly deep dive in Lagos, a megalopolis he describes as "a System D city", where virtually no infrastructures are provided by the state, and where basic services like power, drinking water and public transit are provided by private industry and workers' collectives, who build systems that function with limited licensing, taxation or oversight.
This wealth of narratives helps make the case that System D is massive and pervasive. Working from numbers from the World Bank and using the insights of Austrian economist Friedrich Schneider, Neuwirth offers an estimate that System D is responsible for roughly $10 trillion in goods and services bought and sold annually. That makes "Bazaristan" the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States. He further argues that System D provides employment for a majority of adults in many developing nations. Whether or not we approve of the activities of System D, Neuwirth argues, we need to take it seriously because of the large number of individuals it impacts.
Neuwirth's inquiry is extremely broad in scope, both in terms of the subjects he considers and the timescale he examines. Chapters look at phenomena like piracy and counterfeit goods, and smuggling across international borders, which Neuwirth examines primarily via Paraguay's Ciudad del Este, a urban center that exists primarily so Brazilian citizens – and merchants – can avoid paying taxes. To provide a historical context for these sorts of trade, Neuwirth calls on classical economists, including Adam Smith, as well as histories from the 18th century to demonstrate the ongoing demonization and dismissal of System D merchants. For me, these excursions into the past are less enjoyable that the wealth of contemporary examples he provides, though they're helpful in establishing that System D is a very old system as well as a new one.
The danger in both of Neuwirth's books is that he loves his subject so much, he occasionally celebrates it uncritically. "Shadow Cities" occasionally read to me as a marketing brochure for Brazilian favelas, suggesting we abandon traditional urban planning and invite urban entrepreneurs to rewire the electrical grid to meet their needs. "Stealth of Nations" is more careful, and Neuwirth engages with the ways in which Lagos can be a nightmare for the people who live there, not just a creative laboratory for urban innovation. At the same time, he urges us to take seriously the miracle that Lagos works at all, a miracle that can be hard to see underneath the diesel smog, caught in an hours-long go-slow.
This appreciation for the complex systems that compose System D can push Neuwirth towards a sort of conservatism that's familiar to readers of Jane Jacobs. Neuwirth's Robert Moses is Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola, who Neuwirth lambasts for clearing street merchants from busy intersections and setting up formalized markets in inconveniently located parts of the city. Neuwirth is right to point out that Fashola, and other urban planners, have a tendency to undervalue the contributions of street merchants, and tend to propose unworkable alternatives to current systems. But celebrating contemporary Lagos in the ways that Jacobs celebrated the Lower East Side seems to miss two critical points. First, to the extent that Lagos works right now, it just barely works – Neuwirth acknowledges as much when he points out that some of Lagos's most impenetrable traffic jams are caused by the tendency of merchants to turn roadways into markets. Second, Lagos is growing at a ferocious pace, and Fashola seems to be taking seriously the challenge of allowing the city to continue functioning as a megalopolis, likely to soon be one of the world's largest cities. One possible response to Neuwirth's criticism is to point out that Fashola was just re-elected with 81% of the vote in a poll most observers saw as free and fair.
Neuwirth is a journalist and documentarian, not an economist or an urban planner, and it may be unreasonable to ask him to solve the thorny problem of bringing System D and the formal economy into closer partnership. Neuwirth examines Hernando de Soto's work on formalizing System D through property rights. De Soto's most helpful intervention is the observation that the poor have wealth – homes, businesses, assets – but few ways to access them. By creating a paper trail, establishing ownership over houses and other real estate, de Soto argues that the poor can access their wealth, borrowing against their homes and using the loans to start new businesses. Neuwirth looks at de Soto's native Peru and concludes that formalization hasn't done much to help System D. The problem is the banks, who are perfectly willing to accept deposits from System D entrepreneurs, but unwilling to lend to them. Neuwirth's anger is rightly placed, and his solution – that communities and governments need to demand that banks serve the communities they are located in, not just their shareholders – is timely and correct, even if difficult to implement.
The solutions Neuwirth offers for strengthening and legitimating System D are, by his own admission, modest in scope. Merchants should work together to regulate their activities, settling disputes within mediation mechanisms. They should take responsibility for the physical spaces they inhabit and work to make them clean and safe. They should consider systems that review product safety and ensure the quality of goods sold. Neuwirth isn't opposed to regulatory involvement in this space – he looks closely at the "pure water" industry in Nigeria, where entrepreneurs drill wells, pump water and purify it under government standards before selling it in single-use sachets to thirsty customers. The system could be a health nightmare if minimum health standards are not enforced. The Lagos government can't provide clean drinking water to its citizens, so it has found a way to work with System D to ensure that people have water and the water doesn't kill them – for System D advocates, there's potential in that story and a model other governments might follow.
But the pure water story also reveals the apparent limits of System D. "Pure water" usually won't kill you, but it's an environmental nightmare, as millions of nylon bags clog the Lagos sewers. It's a wonderful thing that Lagosians can drink safe water, but a system where thousands of school-age girls sell sachets of water because you can't drink the water out of the pipes isn't a system any sane planner would advocate for. System D can get Lagos's citizens to work, but it's never going to build affordable and environmentally sound public transportation. If merchants follow Neuwirth's advice, they may collectively buy bigger diesel generators, but they're unlikely to fix Nigeria's laughably inadequate power grid.
The people Neuwirth celebrates are – rightly – frustrated by their governments. They avoid paying taxes both because those taxes can be arbitrary and unaffordable, and because they see very few government services in exchange bought with those revenues. But governments need revenues to build infrastructures. And, as economist Paul Collier argues, they need taxes – and need to put those taxes to use in productive ways – in order to have legitimacy. System D seems like a local maximum in an equation – when it works well, it's amazing what entrepreneurial people can accomplish against impossible odds. But the solutions created are convoluted and incomplete, and it's reasonable to worry that System D may prevent more formal systems from providing more complete solutions to societal problems.
I don't actually disagree with Neuwirth on this point – I wrote an essay some years back about incremental infrastructure, an idea I'd had from studying African mobile phone markets, that suggested that systems like power grids and roadways might be built by the cooperation of entrepreneurs when governments failed. My proposal suffers from the same weaknesses I'm criticizing Neuwirth for: it's hard to see how a collective of merchants builds a railroad, and sometimes a railroad is what's really needed for economic development.
But that's an awfully big problem to demand that Neuwirth tackle – if you want to understand precisely how complicated that problem is, try this thought piece from Collier, proposing a possible solution to railroad construction in sub-Saharan Africa. Neuwirth's job isn't to solve the problems of System D. What he does – compellingly, readably, engagingly, and frequently, brilliantly – is give the reader a picture of how the world's economies actually work, and a convincing argument that we need to respect and understand these economic systems. It's a good read and an important book.
When you pick up Neuwirth's new book, also consider grabbing a copy of Gordon Mathews's "Ghetto at the Center of the World", a remarkable ethnography of a single building in Hong Kong, Chungking Mansions. Chungking Mansions is a nondescript and somewhat run-down tower block in one of the more crowded corners of Kowloon. Inside is a remarkable market, where Chinese, Pakistani and sub-Saharan African merchants interact with one another in a microcosm of global trade. Mathews refers to this economic phenomenon as "low-end globalization", and his book unpacks the history, mechanics, personalities and motivations in a way that is absolutely fascinating.
Chungking Mansions exists because of a peculiarity of Hong Kong's visa policies. Tourist visas to Hong Kong are easily obtained by citizens of many nations – residents of countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya often have difficulty obtaining visas to Europe, the US or China, but are able to travel to Hong Kong for anywhere between 7 and 90 days, depending on the discretion of the immigration officer. As China became a major manufacturing power, Chungking Mansions became a critical interface between Chinese factories and developing world markets. The upper floors of the building feature low-cost guesthouses that cater primarily to traveling merchants, and restaurants that offer home cooking for the African and South Asian migrants who work out of the building.
On the ground floor, dozens of stalls feature Pakistani merchants selling Chinese-made mobile phones to African middlemen. Mathews documents the trade in intimate detail, explaining the ownership of the individual stalls (they are generally rented from Chinese owners who are rarely present in the building, but have a powerful owner's association that governs the working on the market), the provenance of the phones sold (including the difference between original phones, 14-day phones – original phones returned to the vendor by dissatisfied customers, good fakes and bad fakes) and the economics of importing phones into sub-Saharan Africa. Mathews posits (without much data to back this claim) that up to half the mobile phones in Africa come through Chungking Market and enter African markets through the luggage of entrepreneurs.
I found Mathews's account so compelling that Chungking Mansions was my first stop when visiting Hong Kong a few weeks ago. Based on his explanation of Chinese perceptions of the building (as a dangerous place filled with drug addicts and criminals), I expected a much shadier place than I actually found. Chungking Mansions is immediately familiar to anyone who's bought electronics in the developing world – it's cleaner and better organized than markets I've been to in Nairobi and New Delhi, but in some ways, functionally the same place. Walking through the stalls, I experienced a tesseract, a folding of space that let me move between Hong Kong, Pakistan and West Africa over the course of a few meters. I dropped into one of the few non-phone stores, a clothing store featuring street fashions, including a wide array of Yankee caps. I gave the merchant grief about not stocking Red Sox hats, quickly figured out that he was Ghanaian, greeted him in Twi, and was warmly embraced and invited upstairs for fufu and groundnut soup. It wasn't at all hard to figure out why Mathews had fallen in love with the place – if you're interested in how globalization is transforming economies, Chungking Mansions really is one of the centers of the world.
I had the chance to meet Mathews when we lectured together at the University of Hong Kong a few days later. He's as wonderfully crazy as you'd imagine him to be, and told me that he'd written the book in a bar across the street from his research site. "The key is that the bar has roasted peanuts in the shell. I'd shell a peanut and think, then write a sentence, then sip my beer. That writing pace is just perfect as long as you remain under three beers." Rarely have I learned so much from a single ethnographer – how to smuggle phones into Ghana in my luggage, the best strategies for overstaying my Hong Kong tourist visa, how to befriend Nepali heroin addicts, and how to pace my writing.
I've been pushing Mathews's book on the ethnographers I know because it's an amazing example of the power of the deep dive. It's possible that no one on the planet understands Chungking Mansions as thoroughly as Mathews does based on his decade of research. But his insights are profoundly helpful not just for understanding this one wonderful and strange building, but for understanding globalization as it is actually practiced. Where Neuwirth takes a broad view, considering economies on four different continents, Mathews rarely leaves the confines of a single building and still manages to tell a story that's global in scope and impact.
Azerbaijan is far from an easy place to be an independent journalist – the nation ranks 152nd in Reporters Without Borders 2010 survey on press freedom. Even given a hostile press environment, Eynulla Fatullayev has had a particularly rough experience as editor of Russian language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and Azeri language daily Gündəlik Azərbaycan, two of the nation's most critical and outspoken newspapers. In 2004, he was beaten on the streets of Baku in an apparent response to his criticism of the government. He faced a number of defamation suits filed by government officials, and in 2006, he was forced to suspend publication of his papers when his father was kidnapped. His abductors threatened to the man and the rest of Fatullayev's family unless he stopped criticizing Azerbaijan's interior minister.
Fatullayev moved to publishing online, but continued to face scrutiny of the Azeri government and supporters. In 2007, he was accused of slandering the Army in an interview about the Khojaly massacre, a tragic episode in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. He was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison, and an additional 2 1/2 years when prison officials allegedly found a small amount of heroin in his cell. Numerous press freedom organizations have condemned his arrest, and in 2009, Committee to Project Journalists awarded him the International Press Freedom Award to recognize his efforts to open the press environment in Azerbaijan.
Eynulla Fatullayev at home after his release from Azeri prison
On Tuesday, Amnesty UK – which has been advocating on Fatullayev's behalf since his arrest – launched a campaign to demand the editor's release from prison. Represented by Jon Snow of Channel 4 and John Mulholland of The Observer, the campaign urged Twitter users to take a picture of themselves holding signs asking "@presidentaz" to release Fatullayev from prison.
By one metric, the campaign wasn't much of a success – despite the presence of such high profile British journalists, only 800 or so people sent messages or retweets to the Azeri president. (We did our part to promote the campaign, with an article on Global Voices by Onnik Krikorian, our remarkable Caucuses editor.) Most participants didn't take photos – they retweeted messages sent by Amnesty, Snow or Mulholland.
But those messages clearly attracted attention within Azerbaijan. A few Azeri nationalists, including some affiliated with the İRƏLİ Public Youth Union, responded angrily to the tweets. Some responded by photoshopping images of British journalist Ian Hislop holding a sign demanding Fatullayev's release, edited to criticize Amnesty's campaign. One modified sign read "Azerbaijan is not USSR! No double standards!" This tweet from @Vetenim illustrates some of the hostility towards Amnesty: "@amnesty This campaign was enough for Azeri Twitter users to see the real face of @AmnestyUK behind the mask. #Amnesty #Eynulla #Azerbaijan"
Krikorian reports that the İRƏLİ Public Youth Union, and particularly Secretary General Rauf Mardiyev have been posting heavily to Twitter tags used by progressive activists in Azerbaijan, potentially to silence or hide dissident voices in the country over the past few months. We're seeing this phenomenon in different corners of the Twittersphere. Oiwan Lam reports that the #aiww (Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, now in custody) tag is heavily used by pro-government spammers, with two particularly prolific spammers responsible for 45% of all recent messages on the tag. Anas Qtiesh investigated a set of Twitter accounts that been flooding the #Syria tag with old sports scores, links to Syrian television programs, and random photos on Flickr tagged #Syria, making the tag dramatically less useful for activists. Qtiesh linked the abuse of Twitter to the Bahraini company Eghna Developement and Support, which advertises their work on behalf of Syria on their site. Eghna has denied that they are abusing Twitter in any way, but the tweets associated with these accounts no longer appear in searches for the #Syria tag, suggesting that Twitter may disagree. (Neal Ungerleider has a good overview of the Syria story on Fast Company.)
While these examples are a good illustration of the ways in which social media is becoming a contested space during political conflicts, this use of each other's hashtags is nothing new to American political activists – activists on the left and right routinely use each other's preferred tags to insert their views into the other side's dialogs. What's been interesting is the volume of these actions – traffic on tags like #Syria or #aiww is lots lower than on popular US political tags, which makes heavy use of the tags to provoke the other side far more visible than in US examples. The utility of hashtags as an easy way to share information with those who share your political perspectives is counterbalanced by the fact that these tags are open channels, and may be as useful to those opposed to your views.
So the Twitter action focused on the Azeri government generated less than a thousand tweets and some of those messages were from government supporters seeking to subvert the campaign. Remarkably, two days after Amnesty launched the campaign, Fatullayev was released from prison under a presidential pardon.
Azerbaijan's winning entry in Eurovision 2011. Warning: video includes the sort of song that wins Eurovision contests.
Amnesty, understandably, is celebrating their campaign's role in Fatullayev's release, and the journalist has thanked Amnesty for their advocacy throughout his detention. As Azeri social media users digest the news of his release, there's speculation that another factor may be at work as well: Azerbaijan's recent victory in the Eurovision song contest. Azeri singers Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Camal won the prize, which is both coveted and ridiculed within Europe, but always widely watched. The victory drew attention to a corner of Eurasia many Europeans pay little attention to, and it's possible that the Azeri government didn't want to spoil their moment in the sun with Amnesty's critical campaign.
So is Amnesty responsible for Fatullayev's release? Is Twitter? Eurovision? And if social media can claim partial responsibility for the release of a prisoner of conscience, will we see this campaign technique used again? Will it be as successful the next time around?
Mary Joyce of the Meta Activism project has warned that a key factor in successful online activism appear to be novelty – it's hard to articulate "best practices" because one of the best practices is to be the first to try a particular technique. If we take the lesson from Fatullayev's release that Twitter campaigns, focused on individual public figures who use Twitter, leveraging offline media attention are a useful strategy, it seems likely that campaign organizations will adopt the technique and use it to the point where future implementations aren't worth an article or a blog post.
Or perhaps directly addressing people in positions of power via Twitter has a directness and immediacy that other forms of media lack. See this recent confrontation between journalist Ian Birell and Rwandan President Paul Kagame via Twitter over Kagame's statement that the international media has no moral right to criticize the repressive political climate in Rwanda given their silence about the 1994 genocide. As this report on the exchange points out, it's hard to imagine this exchange taking place in an era before microblogging. Perhaps the sort of unvarnished dialog that Kagame, his supporters and Birell engage in here motivated Azeri president Ilham Aliyev to reconsider the arrest of journalists in his country. My guess – I don't think it's that simple, and I think we're going to have to try a lot more online activism before we know what works, what doesn't and how new capabilities lead to new dialogs.
I spent the past two days in Cambridge, primarily around MIT, and almost exclusively talking about the "Arab Spring" and what we've learned about social media and protest in authoritarian states. Early Wednesday morning, the MIT Museum hosted a "soapbox" session, which put Dr. Marlyn Tadros and me in dialog with Egyptian protesters and bloggers, including Mahmoud "Sandmonkey" Salem, who I was thrilled to meet virtually. Events via video are tricky, and there were some issues with sound quality for the folks watching in Cambridge, but the resulting video of the event is excellent.
The highlight of the two days in Cambridge was an event I hosted at the MIT Media Lab yesterday afternoon, a conversation called "Civic Disobedience", which featured three of my favorite people, who also happen to be three folks extremely knowledgeable about social media and the Arab Spring.
Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor of sociology at UMaryland Baltimore County, where she studies social networks on and offline. Her blog, Technosociology, has become required reading with very insightful essays on Wikileaks, the Arab Spring and other recent intersections between online and offline social networks.
Clay Shirky has been doing some of the most interesting writing and thinking about the internet and human relationships, since 1996. He teaches at NYU in both the journalism department and in the Interactive Telecommunications Program, writes extensively online and has published two key books about the internet, participation, groups and social change.
Sami ben Gharbia is the director of Global Voices Advocacy, the free speech arm of Global Voices Online. He's the co-founder of Nawaat.org, one of the central actors in the Tunisian dissident media space. He was exiled from Tunisia 13 years ago and returned home for the first time a few weeks ago, in the wake of Tunisia's successful revolution. He is also one of the smartest critical thinkers about the limitations of our current understandings of internet and social change – his essay, The Internet Freedom Fallacy and Arab Digital activism, should be required reading for anyone expressing an opinion about "internet freedom".
With these three folks on stage, I had virtually nothing to do as moderator. So I took notes, which I'll share here, to tide you over until the session video is posted.
Sami opened the conversation by giving his view of how social media had helped enable protests in Tunisia. He offers three-part model that treats social media as part of a more complex ecosystem, involving Facebook as a publishing platform, multiple curation platforms (Nawaat, Global Voices, Twitter, Posterous) and broadcast platforms (AlJazeera and France24).
Facebook became central to the Tunisian media ecosystem because all other sites that allowed video sharing – YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo and others – were blocked by the Tunisian government, along with hundreds of blogs and dozens of key twitter accounts. This censorship, Sami argues, drove Tunisian users towards Facebook, and made it hard for the government to block it. The government tried in 2008, but the outcry was so huge, they reversed course. The main reason – usage of Facebook more than doubled during the 10 days of blockage as Tunisians found ways around the national firewall and onto the service.
Censorship, in general, because a unifying force in the Tunisian online sphere. Reacting to censorship taught Tunisians how to disseminate information through alternative paths and helped them use social media for advocacy in a time of crisis. For all the disagreements Tunisians have with one another, they can agree on censorship as a common enemy. This is why, when Ben Ali offered a final set of concessions to his people on January 13th in a desperate bid to hold onto power, one concession was the elimination of online censorship.
Facebook was an important platform for Tunisians for publishing, mobilizing and organizing, Sami tells us. But it's a very limited platform. It's closed, both technically and socially, which can make it extremely difficult for journalists to find people to interview about stories. And Tunisia can be linguistically closed, even to other Arabs – the Tunisian dialect is a mix of French, Berber, Italian and Arabic that can be very hard to penetrate. While Facebook was used to share videos, it also made it very hard to figure out the origins of those videos – when were they originally published and by whom? For Facebook to be useful for a wider audience than Tunisians, you needed Tunisian users to identify key pages and profiles and bring them out of Facebook's closed system and into the open web.
That's what curators did. Sites like Nawaat were critical in identifying content posted on Facebook, tagging, timestamping and categorizing it and making it accessible to other media organizations. Both Nawaat and Global Voices translated key pieces of content, and Nawaat used a Posterous blog to identify over 400 videos, many of which were used by Al Jazeera.
Once content made it onto Al Jazeera, it began filtering back into Tunisia, letting Tunisians who weren't looking for content online understand what was unfolding. Jazeera has a huge audience in Tunisia, though it's never been allowed to report there. (I'd been telling people that Jazeera had been forced to stop operating in Tunisia by Ben Ali – Sami tells me Ben Ali never let them in at all…) Jazeera, Sami argues, became an extension of the internet, publishing user-generated content and using it to educate Tunisian citizens about what was going on in their own country, and eventually the whole region. Tunisians knew how important Jazeera was once police officers began heading into cafes and begging owners to switch their TVs to another channel.
This three part model created an information cascade that Sami believes directly led to the revolution. He cites some key events that gave the media disproportionate power. One was the Tunileaks/Wikileaks cables. Tunileaks received cables about Tunisia sent from a dissident within Wikileaks who was upset that the group was cooperating only with mainstream media and not citizen media. Tunileaks released these cables well before Wikileaks released their archive of cables. (I asked Sami, "You're involved with Tunileaks, right?" His response: "I am Tunileaks." :-) Sami and friends used Google Appspot to publish the cables, knowing that the service rested on a set of IP addresses used by several other key Google services. This meant that, in blocking the cables, the Tunisian government was forced to block other key services, raising attention to the cables and encouraging more people to use firewall circumvention tools to access them.
Sami also cites the Anonymous attacks on Tunisia as another key turning point. They weren't especially effective, but the story was so sexy, American media had to start paying attention.
Expanding on Sami's analysis of the ecosystem, Zeynep offers the idea of analyzing social media and revolutions in terms of "meso-level causal mechanisms". (After offering that phrase, Zeynep gives a disclaimer that she's early in her analysis and just "thinking out loud". That her thinking out loud includes phrases like "meso-level causal mechanisms" gives you a sense for why she's so worth reading.) There's a temptation, she says, to view social media as like other media, just faster. But that fails to see some of the key nuances.
There are network effects that come from social media. The shape of connectivity networks changes – people are more directly connected to one another, rather than being clustered into separate groups, linked by bridge figures. Tunisia, in particular, has an online social network "with one giant component, one big, heavily linked space, probably related to the anti-censorship campaigns Sami spoke about." This network is big, tightly connected and fast, and information passes through it much more quickly than it passes through offline social networks.
There are field effects as well. When media reaches a broad audience, either through social media or through broadcast, it's possible to affect the mood of the country all at once. And we see network to field effects: information cascades. The experience of Tunileaks was, in part, the revealing of hidden preferences. Tunisians knew they weren't fond of Ben Ali, but discovering that no one liked him, including the US, had an important effect. When Egyptians looked at Tunisia and said, "We can do this, too!", that's also a network to field effect.
The meso-level mechanisms include increased participation. We don't always like what we get when we see increased participation. Increases simply accelerate and strengthen dynamics that are already in place. In a polarized situation, increased participation often means increased polarization, which is what we may be seeing in Bahrain. That makes it hard for participation to lead towards coordinated action. In Egypt, near the end, "Mubarak's dog didn't like him. Much as we wish it was, that's not the case in Iran or Bahrain…"
Another meso-level effect is faster information diffusion. This can mean the ways audiences are segmented change as well. Information that might have been accessible only to a literate class is not accessible to non-literate people as well. In much of the Middle East, there's a big divide between the literate and non-literate public spheres – when those distinctions collapse, there's the possibility of coordination between those two groups. On the other hand, the Habermasean pubic sphere (which may never have been as calm and reasoned as Habermas wished it was) can get downright emotional. The emergence of Mohamed Bouazizi as a rallying point helps show the emotional nature of the narrative in Tunisia.
One way to understand how big these changes are is to watch the shift in "coup etiquette". In her native Turkey, Zeynep tell us, you can tell a coup based on what song is playing on the radio. "If you hear this one specific patriotic song, you know it's time to go buy bread." That's because coup planners traditionally seized the radio and television stations first. In Egypt, there was a debate amongst Tahrir protesters about seizing a television station – in the end, they decided not to bother. The emergence of social media makes broadcast less relevant, though probably not irrelevant.
Authoritarian states are very experienced at trying to silence dissent, Zeynep reminds us. They are very good at playing whack a protest, and most of the time, they're successful, using a "quarantine" model to separate protesters from the rest of the state. She cites a protest in Tunisia in 2008 in the mining town of Gafsa, which the Tunisian government successfully defeated, by surrounding and isolating the protesters. In Sidi Bouzid in 2010, enabled in part by social media, a very similar crackdown failed to stop the spread of the protest "virus".
Sami added a key note to Zeynep's model, pointing out that the Sidi Bouzid protesters appealed to the rest of the nation for support with their demands. The protesters in Gafsa focused their grievances on a local mining company, which made it very hard for the rest of the nation to join in supporting them. "They quarantined themselves, in a way."
Given Clay's extensive writings about social media and protest, I asked him to evaluate what he got right and wrong, in light of events in Egypt and Tunisia. Warning us that four months isn't long enough to understand what's actually gone on with these protests, Clay explains that he feels recent events have confirmed his thoughts about the importance of synchronizing groups. "Governments aren't afraid of informed individuals – they're afraid of synchronized groups." In particular, they're afraid of groups that have shared awareness.
With authoritarian states, there are three possible states. In the first, everyone knows the government is corrupt. In the second, everyone knows that everyone knows the government is corrupt. In the final stages, the ones where governments collapse, everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows. Clay argues that autocratic regimes can survive the first and second phases for years – that third stage, where shared awareness leads to synchronization, is more dangerous for autocrats.
What he got wrong, he says, was overemphasizing the use of tools for coordination for protest. "I concentrated too much on using tools to get people out into the streets. It turns out that bringing people out into the streets only works if it's the end of a long process. It's not a replacement for that process." This, he believes, is why Egyptian protests were successful – they leveraged long-standing networks like Kefayah. But without those networks, going into the streets can be very dangerous. He cites an example worthy of Evgeny Morozov – when Sudan feared a revolution, "they used Facebook to call a revolution againt itself, then arrested everyone who came out, as they were the people most likely to make trouble."
Referring to Zeynep's mechanisms for action, Clay says he believes that social media "synchronizes opinion, coordinates action, and documents results." The medium is less relevant than these processes – it's not about mobiles versus Facebook versus Jazeera. If you want to know how seriously to take these effects, Clay suggests you look at the fact that both insurgents and autocrats believe these tools matter, and take risks to act on these beliefs. He offers the example of Libyan officials searching people fleeing across the Tunisian border for digital cameras and USB sticks. "Even Qaddafi doesn't like letting documentation of murder reach the rest of the world."
Clay shifts the conversation to the issue of "internet freedom". Noting how influential Sami's essay was on his thinking, Clay suggests that the US overestimates the value of access to information and underestimates the value of access to each other. If we wanted to promote internet freedom, we need to think more about synchronization and less about information in considering these tools.
I asked Sami if he'd softened his stance on US involvement with internet freedom from his earlier writings. He points out that US support for the Iranian protests helped Ahmedinejad make the argument that protests were instigated by outside agitators, when they were actually a legitimate domestic movement. "In Tunisia, we fought very hard to keep our movement independent from foreign interference, including avoiding those who were collaborating with the government." That said, Sami acknowledges that there's a big difference between public statements by the US State Department and actions behind the scenes, which is often very productive and positive. What Sami would like to see the US doing publicly is controlling the sale of censorware, not advocating for freedom while allowing some of the key filtering technologies to be sold to repressive governments. He notes that individuals are also capable of taking effective steps in solidarity with dissidents – hosting video archives and mirroring key content to help make it visible in Tunisia, smuggling communications hardware into Egypt and Yemen, even calling attention to protests through actions like those of Anonymous.
Zeynep suggests that we not dismiss the Iranian green revolution as a failure. Much as the failed Dean campaign helped elect Obama, the Iranian protests helped us understand how to use social media for revolutionary change. While she supports efforts to get the US to be more consistent on internet policy, she suggests the larger problem is getting US foreign policy to shift from supporting dictators. "I'm betting most, if not all, will be gone by the end of the decade."
Clay suggests that watching other country's revolutions matters enormously, in terms of bearing witness, moral support, and in the case of US citizens, influencing the policy of a superpower. He's happy to admit an normative bias for democracy and free speech and to support a foreign policy that respects this. But this demands we push for consistency.
"I urge my students not to try to pay attention to the whole world, but to start by picking a country to care about. Mine is Bahrain, and I believe we need to make visible the tension between our politices and our current support for Bahrainm which is becoming an apartheid state run by Saudi Arabia."
Clay doesn't believe the US should stay out of fields like internet freedom. "We can't. We need bilateral relationships with everyone." But we need to recognize that we've lost the ability to speak in three separate voices – one directly to other states, one to the public and one to the cognoscenti. Twitter and Wikileaks have collapsed these channels, and as a result, the US may need to speak a lot less, at least in public.
As the discussion moved into question and answer, it became significantly more free-flowing, and I had to moderate rather than taking notes. I will mention a couple of exchanges that stuck in my memory:
– A questioner asked whether we'll see social media playing an important role in governance as well as in revolution, suggesting that the social media revolutions that elected Deval Patrick and Barack Obama have been disappointing in terms of participatory governance. Sami made the point that Tunisians need to rebuild a vast range of institutions – an independent media, NGOs, transparency organizations, political parties, and that all were being rebuilt using new media and social media tools.
– A good deal of our discussion involved analogies to previous revolutions. Sami made a key point – the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were not trying to overturn existing systems of government – both states have been constitutional democracies. The revolution wasn't to change the form of government, but to get it to be respected.
– Professor Ian Condry suggested that, if these revolutions took ten years to unfold, we need to think through what ten-year changes might be underway now. Clay pointed to Paul Ford's essay "Why Wasn't I Consulted" and suggests that the assumption of participation may be a key ten-year change.
– Nitin Sawhney pointed the audience to three examples that appear to contradict the relationship between communications technology and democratic revolution. The Islamic Revolution used a new technology – cassette tapes – to lead to non-democratic change. The Palestinian first and second intifadas were organized with virtually no technology and were effective forms of resistance. And in Bahrain, being heavily wired hasn't led to a successful revolution. In each case, American foreign policy seems to have mattered more than communication technology. The panel responded by acknowledging that none think that communications was the key or sole factor in the changes in Tunisia and Egypt – however, Clay argued that states try to keep an equilibrium state between the utility of new tools and the inability of citizens to syncronize protest, and that new technologies may destabilize that equilibrium and offer an opportunity for change.
We should have video for this session soon – I will post it once it becomes available. Sincere thanks to my three friends for their wonderful talks and to the audience for a great conversation.


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BIRN provides a diverse, growing collection of data-related resources: software tools that facilitate data sharing and analysis, best practices to help users build on lessons learned with large image-sharing trials, and data collected in those trials. Any or all of these may prove useful for new users, either directly or to spark ideas about how to maximize BIRN's potential for specific groups and purposes.
This section also contains a different kind of resource: a Share Your Tools page that describes how BIRN can help you disseminate tools you've developed, and where to go for funding if you're intrigued by the prospect of integrating those tools with existing BIRN capabilities.
We expect this section, particularly the Tools page, to grow significantly in 2010. Please check back often for new capabilities and expanded functionality of existing ones.

subset: commoncrawl


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December 02, 2011
Whatsonstage.com have announced their shortlist of nominations for the 12th annual awards, which are voted for by the theatre-going public.
Nominees include Alecky Blythe's London Road, directed by Rufus Norris, which has been nominated for See Tickets Best New Musical and The Les Miserables Best Ensemble Performance. Also, Ben Brown has been nominated for The Nick Hern Books Best New Play for Three Days in May, which is currently showing at Trafalgar Studios starring Warren Clarke as Winston Churchill.
Jeremy Herrin also enjoys success with his production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe, which has been nominated for the Best Shakespearean Production and his production of The Heretic by Richard Bean has been nominated for Best New Play, and Johnny Flynn who starred has been nominated for The Dewynters London Newcomer of the Year.
Headlong's Decade, which both Alecky Blythe and Ella Hickson contributed to, and The Bush Theatre's 24-hour cycle of 66 Books have both been nominated for The Aka Theatre Event of the Year. James Graham, Nick Payne, Deirdre Kinahan and Enda Walsh all wrote for 66 Books with Joe Murphy and Nessah Muthy directing.
And finally, Timothy Sheader's Crazy For You has been nominated for The Radisson Edwardian Best Musical Revival.
You can vote at the What'sOnStage website and the winners will be revealed at the Awards Ceremony on 19th February 2012 at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
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Hubblecast 80: The riddle of the missing stars
New observations of four globular clusters in the Fornax dwarf galaxy have called into question one of the leading theories about how these clusters form. In this episode we explain the mystery behind these objects and how it is deepened by these new findings. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB.
Hubblecast 77: Hubble and the Bermuda Triangle of Space
This Hubblecast tells the story of what happens to Hubble in the mysterious region known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Credits and more information: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast77a/
Hubblecast 76: Merging galaxies and droplets of starbirth
This Hubblecast explores the 'beads on a string' star formation found between two merging elliptical galaxies in the cluster known as SDSS J1531+3414. Credits and more information: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1414a/
Hubblecast 75: Dwarf Galaxies that Pack a Punch
This new Hubblecast episode looks at starburst dwarf galaxies in a time when most of the stars in the Universe were formed. New NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations show that dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in the early history of the Universe. This episode looks at the dwarf galaxies that form stars in sudden bursts, explores just how rampantly they are creating new stars and unravels when, where and how the stars in our Universe formed. Credits and more information: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1412a/
Hubblecast 74: Hubble and Heaven's Carousel
This episode of the Hubblecast explores the intersection of science and art through the artwork of Tim Otto Roth — premiered in March 2014 at the fourth Hubble Space Telescope Conference at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.
Hubblecast 73: Hubble revisits the Monkey Head Nebula for 24th birthday snap
In April of this year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope will be celebrating 24 years of observing. To celebrate this milestone, the observatory is releasing a brand new image of part of NGC 2174, otherwise known as the Monkey Head nebula. This new Hubblecast episode showcases this beautiful image, which views a colourful region filled with young stars embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust.
Hubblecast 72: Clues to a cosmic crime
The newest episode of the Hubblecast showcases striking new observations of a spiral galaxy moving through the heart of a galaxy cluster named Abell 3627. This cluster is violently ripping the spiral's entrails out into space, leaving bright blue streaks as telltale clues to this cosmic crime. Credit: ESA/Hubble
Hubblecast 71: Visible echoes around RS Puppis
This episode of the Hubblecast explores striking new Hubble observations of a variable star known as RS Puppis. This star is growing brighter and dimmer as it pulsates over a period of five weeks. These pulsations have created a stunning example of a phenomenon known as a light echo, where light appears to reverberate through the foggy environment around the star.
Hubblecast 70: Peering around cosmic corners
Last month saw the inauguration of a new Hubble observing program: Frontier Fields. This will use the powerful magnifying properties of massive galaxy clusters to peer even deeper into the space around us. Hubblecast 70 takes a look at this phenomenon — known as gravitational lensing — exploring how it works, and how it can help us to uncover the secrets of the very distant Universe.
Hubblecast 69: What has Hubble learned from star clusters?
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed many star clusters. As well as being scientifically interesting, these clusters produce stunning images, appearing like sparkling baubles in the sky. This episode of the Hubblecast looks at how Hubble has studied and imaged these beautiful objects, also introducing a striking new image of Messier 15, one of the oldest globular clusters in our skies.
Hubblecast 67: Of galaxies and penguins - Arp 142
Galaxies spend most of their life drifting through the cosmic expanse in isolation. But, every so often, two unfortunate galaxies stray a little too close to one another — as is the case with Arp 142. Showcased in a stunning new image from Hubble, these two galaxies uncannily resemble a penguin guarding its egg.
Hubblecast 66: Hubble uncovers the secrets of the Ring Nebula
Episode 66 of the Hubblecast explores the Ring Nebula (Messier 57). Although this nebula is one of the most famous objects in our skies, more than 200 years after its discovery astronomers are still unveiling some of its secrets. Credit: ESA/Hubble
Hubblecast 65: A whole new view of the Horsehead — celebrating Hubble's 23rd Birthday
This episode of the Hubblecast celebrates 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with the unveiling of a beautiful and striking new Hubble image of the Horsehead Nebula. Our host Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) explains the secrets of nebulae, cosmic clouds of gas and dust that have been the subjects of some of Hubble's most striking astronomical images. The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most distinctive, and is now shown in a whole new light thanks to a stunning new infrared image — revealing the delicate wisps of gas that are normally hidden by the thick dust that makes up the Horsehead's famous and familiar shape. Credit: ESA/Hubble
Hubblecast 64: It all ends with a bang! — The incineration of Dr. J
Most stars in the Universe are small and insignificant, and they will — eventually — fizzle out without much drama. But a few light up the sky when they die, and in the process, they don't just tell us about the lives of stars: they create the building blocks of life, and help us to unravel the whole history of the Universe. These are the stars that end their lives as supernovae, explosions that are among the most violent events in the Universe. Credit: ESA/Hubble
Hubblecast 63: From the distant past — Hubble and art
This episode of the Hubblecast explores how conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth has been inspired by scientific data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to create a unique work of art.
Hubblecast 62: A spiral galaxy with a secret
Hubblecast episode 62 explores nearby spiral galaxy Messier 106. At first glance it looks like a normal spiral, but look a little deeper, and it hides some intriguing secrets. Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) gives us a tour of this fascinating object.
Hubblecast 61: A tour of NGC 5189
In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) invites us to tour NGC 5189, a planetary nebula in our galaxy. The nebula looks like a ribbon in space, with a complex structure that comes from the dying throes of a Sun-like star at its centre. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Narrator: Sara Mendes da Costa Presented by: Dr Joe Liske (Dr J) Images: NASA, ESA,, Digitized Sky Survey 2 Music: John Stanford Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen Translation guidelines: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/subtitles/
Hubblecast 59: Unweaving the rainbow
In this episode of the Hubblecast, we do away with Hubble's stunning pictures of the cosmos, and focus on one of the telescope's most important — but least known — functions. Like a digital camera, Hubble's cameras produce colour images by sampling just a handful of colours and combining them together into one picture. The detail is extraordinary — but while the colours are accurate enough for the human eye, they are not good enough for some kinds of scientific work, such as the study of distant galaxies and extrasolar planets. In this episode, presenter Joe Liske (aka Dr J) and Hubble astronomer Bob Fosbury give a introduction to spectroscopy using Hubble, how it works, and what it's for. Translation guidelines: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/subtitles/
Hubblecast 58: Caught in the cosmic web
In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows how a team of astronomers has used Hubble and a battery of other telescopes to discover the secrets of massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717. They have found that an invisible filament of dark matter extends out of the cluster. This is our first direct glimpse of the shape of the scaffolding that gives the Universe its structure. More info: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1215a/ Translation guidelines: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/subtitles/
Hubblecast 57: Hubble's hidden treasures revealed
In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) presents the winners of the Hidden Treasures image processing competition. In May 2012, we asked members of the public to delve into Hubble's vast science archive to uncover pictures that had never been seen outside of the scientific community — and then to try their hand at processing the scientific data into attractive images. This episode presents the top ten images from the several thousand submitted. http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast57a/


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RELEASED: March 22, 2011
|Elizabeth McNutt
|Shannon Wettstein
EAU CLAIRE — The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will host a guest artist recital featuring the Calliope Flute and Piano Duo at 7:30 p.m. April 5 in Phillips Recital Hall of the Haas Fine Arts Center.
Dr. Elizabeth McNutt, flute, and Dr. Shannon Wettstein, piano, formed the Calliope Duo in 1999 while attending the University of California, San Diego, where they both earned doctorates in contemporary music performance practice. The duo focuses on innovative, recently composed music.
Wettstein has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and internationally. She is the pianist for the internationally acclaimed contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist and has collaborated with many well-known composers. She typically premieres more than 60 new works per year.
A virtuoso flutist, McNutt has a passion for new and adventurous music. She has commissioned and premiered countless new works and has become an expert interpreter of the masterpieces of the last century. Besides her ongoing collaborations with young and upcoming composers, McNutt has worked with such notables as Pierre Boulez, Harvey Sollberger, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa and Joan Tower.
Dr. Ethan Wickman, assistant professor of music at UW-Eau Claire, has worked with Wettstein in the past and looks forward to a fantastic program.
"I am excited the Calliope Duo is coming because they really do represent the cutting edge of new art music performance," Wickman said.
McNutt and Wettstein will present pieces from the mid-20th to the 21st century. The concert will consist of 14 pieces, 10 of which were composed in the last two years.
The event is free and open to the public.
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The David Bowie retrospective exhibition, David Bowie Is, is set to open in Berlin, Germany, following its successful run at London's Victoria and Albert Museum last year.
Bowie lived in Berlin in the 70s, writing his Berlin Trilogy of albums there. The Berlin show will be adjusted to reflect this fact.
Bowie went to Berlin in the summer of 1976 in order to escape his fame, subsequently re-inventing himself musically. "Suddenly he was thinking differently in the way people saw him, communicating differently with the world," Geoffrey Marsh, director of the V&A's Department of Theatre and Performance and co-curator of David Bowie Is told the Guardian.
It opens on May 20 at the city's Martin-Gropius-Bau venue and runs until August 10.
Copyright(c) 2014 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved


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All of our eyeglasses are authentic vintage!
Most have never been used, so they are in new, unused condition,
with all the style and quality of eyeglasses made decades, in some cases centuries, ago.
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1986 Christmas Classics #1 - Sugarplum Fairy
Home > Hallmark Ornaments By Year > 1986 Hallmark Ornaments > 1986 Christmas Classics #1 - Sugarplum Fairy
|Item Name: 1986 Christmas Classics #1 - Sugarplum Fairy
Price: $90.00
Item Code: QLX7043
Condition: Mint in Box/New
Availability: In Stock
|Series Page: Christmas Classics
|Dated: 1986
|Lighted: Yes
|Material: Unknown
|Artist: Unknown
|Brand: Hallmark
We recommend the following lights. We have found them
to work excellent with all lighted Hallmark ornaments.
$7.50 $7.50 $6.50
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Order Online or by Phone at (419) 427-8506
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You can email The Ornament Shop at:
The Ornament Shop is not affiliated with Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Hallmark, Keepsake and Crown Rewards are registered trademarks of Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, MO.


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Mission & Values
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Improved Patient Safety
Patient-ready, unit dose preparations
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In evaluating IV delivery system safety, studies have shown that health-system staff identify manufacturer-prepared IV delivery systems as the best option for minimization of both adverse drug events and patient/employee risk.
Manufacturers offer an optimal compounding environment with exceptionally low risk of contamination.
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Case Studies
A study conducted by Chui, Lin, Ivy, McArter, Chui on IV drug waste at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and presented at the Summer 2009 American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists Meeting concluded that
drug waste cost an average of $49,977 per month for the medical center.
Annualized, this would be close to $600,000 per year. A Weinger study focusing on waste in the operating room spanned a two-week period and 166 procedures. Waste of IV anesthesia drugs based on purchase price totaled $1802, or $46,852 per year.
ASHP Reports: Proceedings of a summit on preventing patient harm and death from iv medication errors. Am J Health-system Pharmacists. 2008;65:2367-79.
Bates DW. Preventing medication errors; a summary. Am J Health-System Pharmacists. 2007;64 (14 suppl 9):S10-S16.
Sanborn MD., Moody ML, Harder KA. Second consensus development conference on safety of intravenous drug delivery systems – 2008. Am J Health-Systems Pharmacists. 2009;66:185-92.
Kaakeh R, Sweet B, Reilly C, Bush C, DeLoach S, Higgins B, Clark A, Stevenson J. Impact of drug shortages on U.S. health systems. Am J Health-System Pharm. 2011(October 1); vol. 68:1811-1819.
Chiu S, Lin AC, Ivey M, McArter J, Chiu CH. Quantifying the intravenous admixture wastage in hospital. Paper presented at: Summer 2009 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Meeting. June 13-17, 2009; Rosemont, IL. Abstract 24.
Weinger MB. Drug wastage contributes significantly to the cost of routine anesthesia care. J Clin Anesth. 2001; 13(7): 491-497.
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The CBEST is required of all teachers in California. We recommend taking it in your first or second year of college. It tests math and literacy to a 10th grade level. Most SCU students pass it on the first try without studying or taking a prep course.
Check out this website for more information: http://www.cbest.nesinc.com/
The CSET is required of all elementary school teachers in California. We recommend taking it in your senior year or the summer after your senior year. It tests knowledge of all the subjects taught by elementary school teachers.
Check out this website for more information: http://www.cset.nesinc.com/
The requirement that elementary school teachers take the CSET exam is a result of federal education legislation, "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB).
To see a NCLB Teacher Toolkit, go to: http://www.ed.gov/teachers/nclbguide/nclb-teachers-toolkit.pdf
We recommend taking a CSET prep class and/or studying on your own. Here is a CSET prep site. We provide this link for your information only and do not endorse or recommend these programs:


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Good bull.
I saw a photo of it in storage in the Activity Center. It reminded me of the crates in Indy 4 containing the Ark of the Covenant... Now that would be a heck of a combo... Oh, I guess I've watched too many of those silly movies. Still, it was good to see that the altar has arrived. :)
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RealCalc - A Realistic Scientific Calculator for Android
RealCalc is a slightly retro but fully featured scientific calculator which looks and operates exactly like the real thing.
Features include:
- Previous result history.
- Unit conversions for distance, area, volume, mass, speed, time, force, pressure, energy, power, temperature and data sizes (user-customizable on RealCalc Plus).
- Physical constants table (user-customizable on RealCalc Plus).
- Powers, roots, logarithmic and exponential functions.
- Percentage calculations.
- Fraction calculations and conversion to/from decimal (RealCalc Plus only).
- Degrees, minutes and seconds support (RealCalc Plus only).
- Trigonometric functions in degrees, radians or gradients.
- Hyperbolic functions.
- Factorials, permutations and combinations.
- Fixed-point, scientific and engineering notation display modes, with adjustable decimal places.
- Hexadecimal, octal and binary modes with logical operator functions.
- 10 memories with memory contents dialog for store and recall.
- Operates in traditional algebraic and RPN modes.
- Adjustable haptic feedback and long-click support.
- Copy and paste support for display value, internal value, memories, history and RPN stack.
- Customizable decimal point and digit grouping format.
- Comprehensive built-in help.
- High-resolution graphics for any display size or resolution.
- Portrait and landscape orientation (RealCalc Plus only).
You can download it from the Google Play store - search for RealCalc or click on the icon above.
You can also find user reviews and other information on the Google Play website here.
If you find RealCalc useful, please consider purchasing RealCalc Plus to gain access to extra features and to support further development. RealCalc Plus can be found here. Thank you.
Latest News
RealCalc v1.7.4 released
What's new:
- Fixed bug in display of small negative DMS values (RealCalc Plus only).
Note that this release is only for RealCalc Plus, the free version has not been updated.
RealCalc v1.7.3 released
What's new:
- Updates for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
RealCalc v1.7.2 released
What's new:
- Fixed possible crash on close-parenthesis.
- Fixed possible lock-up in nCr/nPr for large numbers.
- Delete key now deletes back from exponent to mantissa.
- Added options for orientation setting. Now respects system auto-rotate setting by default.
- Added options to set full-screen mode depending on orientation.
- Added option to swap fraction and DMS keys.
- Added support for inverse conversion unit relationships, e.g. mpg to litres/100km.


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Level 7 Blank Slate
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Recent Game Medals
Teleport 5 Points Use teleport for the first time Medal Stats.
Small Snake 5 Points Finish the first 5 levels Medal Stats.
Reflector 5 Points Change the snake direction for the first time Medal Stats.
Dot 5 Points Eat the first dot in the game Medal Stats.
Self Surveillance 10 Points Complete the "Moving iEye" levels Medal Stats.
BE SOMEBODY 5 Points Run away, and begin your escape. Medal Stats.
Money saver 25 Points Get 10k points without building anything Medal Stats.
Bronze 25 Points Get 10k points Medal Stats.
Fear 10 Points Kill a spider mini-boss Medal Stats.
BLACK AND WHITE 25 Points Complete ONE THIRD of the original levels. Medal Stats.
Total Medals Earned: 399 (From 42 different games.)
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These Pancakes Are Tiny Rated 4.3918 Stars Two brothers, a plate of pancakes and a whole lot of swear words. Comedy - Original The Reward Rated 4.5051 Stars The Reward is a film about bromance, fantasy, killing stuff... and HIGH FIVES!! Comedy - Original Breadheads Rated 4.4422 Stars A wartime regiment deals with an epidemic turning fellow soldiers into bread people. Action Wrong Number Rated 4.4957 Stars Directed by M. Night Shamalamadingdong. Comedy - Original
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10 More Bullets Rated 4.2820 Stars How many ships can you destroy with 10 more bullets ? Action - Shooter - Fixed Gap Monsters Rated 4.4333 Stars Play, create, & share Negative-Space puzzles! Drag holes, fall through walls, and go mad. Puzzles - Other Fear Less! Rated 4.2507 Stars A girl's recurring nightmares of being chased by death. Clear your mind... Action - Platformer - Hop and Bop Scale of the Universe 2 Rated 4.4819 Stars Zoom from the edge of the universe to quantum foam and learn about everything in between. Gadgets - Other


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Kylie Minogue's 2007 album cover.
Lady Gaga's 2011 album cover.
The original Kylie cover from 2007 was in full color.
PHOTOS: Lady Gaga vs. Kylie Minogue
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C-MuR's blog
Yes I am 18 but I live on music, I have to listen to the new albums but I would have to say my opinion is that the old stuff was a lot better, it had more meaning, and more entertaining. The new stuff today is not much to me, I like some of it just not a lot of it, some of it just has people bragging what they got and they are so hot, has some 16 or 17 year old that sounds like his huevos...
Since September 13th 2009 I waited and looked for the album Shakurspeare an album Tupac Shakur is supposedly unreleased audio from his early career, but it was pushed back to his 39th birthday that happened June 16th 2010 but it never was released, the only thing that is troubling me is it was said to be a fake album, and was not released because his mother, all I want to do is hear the music...
Happy Birthday to Tupac Shakur one of the greatest West Coast Rappers alive!!
Last Friday my good friend lost his dad by suicide, we held the wake today May 4th, it was a open casket because he was hit in the chest with a 22 slug. We are having the funeral tomorrow Cinco de Mayo may 5th, we will all miss you Jack McReynolds. If you lost some one you really cared about leave their name, to all the fallen people Requiescat en Pace (Rest in Peace)..
How come when I turn on my radio I hear dumb songs on the radio, and no songs from Ice Cube, 2Pac, or Dr. Dre? Is it inappropriate or is it that people are stupid today and dont know what stuff is good? I hear some dude talkin bout makin a bed rock, burthday sex, bumpin n grindin, and boyz wantin 2 touch some girls junk. How is this shit appropriate huh tell me??
At my school, in the SE of Kansas and i love tha school n all, but i guess it was a good dance but they play way to much wack crappy music, at my prom last night i asked tha DJ if they had any Tupac to play n they was lyke i dnt think it would be appropriate to play, and they play Bed Rock, im not dissin it its a good song but really its appropriate, and they had a song bout bump n grind, ya...


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Share this if you—or your son or daughter—are one of the millions of young Americans who now have health insurance thanks to Obamacare and Barack Obama.
Vote for education. Vote for President Obama.
Actor Justin Long grew up in a middle-class Connecticut home, the son of two teachers who instilled in him a belief and a faith in education. But when he went off to college, student loan debt became overwhelming, and he had to drop out of school after two years. "I ended up lucky," he says, "because I became an actor. But that's a one in a billion shot that I took. We need strong education—we need someone who's concerned about the middle class."
"I'm proud of what President Obama has done on education," Long says. "I'm proud of him for doubling Pell Grants. I'm proud of student loan reform. I believe in that man. I don't believe in a man who, in order to make a $5 trillion tax cut, is going to gut education. So I'm voting for the future. I'm voting for education. I'm voting on behalf of 100 percent of Americans."
Ngozi is a freshman at Hampton University in Virginia. While most of her classmates will cast their first ballots in this year's election, Ngozi can't: She's just 17 years old. But her age isn't stopping her from making sure President Obama gets a second term—she's been dorm-storming all semester, registering students to vote ahead of Monday's registration deadline. "It's so important to me that I want to help anyway," she says. "I canvassed in 2008, and this year, even though I can't vote, I want to help by doing all that I can—and that means registering people to vote." Today, she and fellow student Ambur are registering voters outside the football stadium as the Hampton Pirates take on Norfolk State.


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Endless Summer Vineyard & Winery in Fort Pierce will have live music beneath the stars Friday night.
The Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival is open Jan. 16 through Jan. 19 in dowtown Fellsmere.
Sebastian Fine Arts and Music Festival will be held from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Jan. 18-19 at Riverview Park in Sebastian.
"The Art of the Electric Automobile" weekend event at the Elliott Museum will include this 1914 Detroit Electric antique car and the brand new TESLA Model S all-electric car. In this photo, Al Simbritz (right), Educational Program Coordinator at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, discusses the history behind the 1914 Detroit Electric antique car.
Mckee Botanical garden is celebrating its jungle history from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday with wildlife demonstrations, a petting zoo, and performances by Showbirdz Parrot Shows.