I have followed the publication of the Dutch movie “Fitna” with some interest. I still haven’t seen the film, and I’m sure it is possible to find somewhere online even though LiveLeak removed it on Friday. However, it seems to be the kind of film that is made just in order to provoke, not to add anything meaningful to the discussion about Islam and the lack of free speech (and a bunch of other related issues). Something I find noticeable, is that there have been a growing number of protests by people whose work features in the film, according to this blog:
“Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard says he wants his prominently featured cartoon of Mohammad to be removed from the film and says Geert Wilders never asked his permission to use it. Broadcaster Robbie Muntz says he is considering taking legal action because the film includes an excerpt of him interviewing murdered film director Theo van Gogh. Rapper Salah Edin also plans to take Geert Wilders to court because the film features a photograph of him dressed as Theo van Gogh’s killer, Mohammed Bouyeri.”
A much more interesting project when it comes to freedom of speech, is this project: A theatre in Potsdam, Germany is preparing to stage The Satanic Verses, based on Salman Rushdie’s famous book from 1988. This is going to the the world premier, and the German theatre is breaking a taboo by staging it.
I think its amazing that a play or a novel can create so much controversy in 2008, and its really sad to read that the Turkish actor Oktay Khan, who was supposed to take part in the play, “withdrew his consent after receiving threats that he would be attacked if he took part.”
Regarding the reason for staging The Satanic Verses, director Uwe Laufenberg says that “he wanted to expose more people to the book, which was well-known as a controversial novel but not for its contents. “Almost everyone has heard of the book, but hardly anyone has read it, which is why I wanted to bring it to the stage. It’s quite self-explanatory,” he said.”
Including myself. Time to learn more about those satanic verses written by the author that is still in hiding.
When I first pushed the pedals, I immediately regret, but there seemed to be no way back. I just had to cycle in thin air. It looks much more fun than it actually was
This is me cycling at the great Technopolis - a technology, science museum just outside of Brussels. This game was meant for big kids, but I couldn’t resist it and had to try. And damned, I forgot I was afraid of heights…
After a little while, I figured out how to balance the bike and trust the installation (they should know what they are doing, these engineers at the museum).
The museum is, by the way, so cool, all kinds of activities for more or less grown ups, and much more impressive than Teknisk museum in Oslo (which I also like). I especially liked the area where kids can build and understand the principle behind bridges. It also great fun to try to run just as fast as a dog or an insect.
I’m back in Brussels after a wonderful holiday in the steep mountains surrounding Colle Isarco, Italy (a fantastic mixture of Italy, Austria, Germany, wiener-schnitzel, pasta, espresso, schnapps and picturesque Tyrol houses).
But just before I went on my Eastern break, I read that the Canadian public broadcaster, CBC, is copying NRK and will adopt DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) BitTorrent distribution for a major prime-time show. I got even more interested when I read what kind of program they are distributing for their world wide audience - Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister - “an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country in hopes of winning 50,000 Canadian dollars, attracted more than 1 million viewers in 2007.” CBC has some info about the BitTorent file here.
It seems like this thing happened much thanks to the highly popular techblog boingboing. According to the C Net article, “Tessa Sproule, the CBC manager in charge of the show’s digital outreach, is a regular reader of the BoingBoing blog, which earlier this month highlighted the use of BitTorrent by Norway’s public broadcaster for one of its most popular shows, Nordkalotten 365. Sproule was inspired by the Norwegian experiment and pushed for something similar at CBC.”
Does this mean that CBC is also following the NRKbeta doctrine: ” The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it”?
Anyway, I digg the energetic NRKbeta blog (in Norwegian, but one of the writers, Eirik Solheim, writes a blog in English, where you can find much NRKbeta-info), and I’m really curious about the Canadian reality politics show, which I have just downloaded the first episode of. Keep up the good work!
Did you see Barack Obama’s race speech or what he calls “A More Perfect Union” speech yesterday? Wow, what a performance! He spoke about two of the most controversial issues in American politics, race and religion, and did it with such strength, confidence, but at the same time, humility. To get all the details, read the transcrip here. I think this will become a classic within the category of political speeches, this is political art - smart, visionary and extremely personal (look at what he says about his white grand mother). As one of the commentator at Huffington Post, Chris Durang, says, “We would be lucky, very lucky, to have him as a president.”
And even before he was finished speaking, people started posting comments online about the speech. Huffington Post has a good overview, take also a look at Technorati. Here are reader’s comments at Washington Post.
As I was looking for something completely different (which is very typical for web searches), I found this great article in Columbia Journalism Review about Wiring Journalism 2.0. Its about how media adopts to new digital technologies, and one of the questions Brad Stenger (co-organizer of the recent conference “Journalism 3G: The Future of Technology in the Field”) asks, is “why shouldn’t journalists program”? I think that is a very appropriate question, and I expect to see more programming journalists such as Adrian Holovaty in the newsroom in the years ahead.
But the computing journalists are quite rare, according to the article:
“CB: It sounds like this type of journalist that’s fluent in both halves of the operation is still pretty rare. Did the Georgia Tech conference address that?
BS: Well, we didn’t know how rare. Yeah, I think it does bear out that it is, but no one has really checked to see. And the truth of it will materialize in the next three to six months, if we see the progress in actual projects and actual things that get done.”
This is something journalism schools really has to address, and I think some of them have a problem in convincing their students of the opportunities they have in digital media. I just remember an article I read in the Norwegian media news-site Journalisten a few months ago, where journalism students said it was less prestigious to work for online media.
If you wonder what computational-journalism really is, here Spenger gives it to us with a spoon:
BS: That’s really the essence of computational journalism-that you’re building tools that deal with streams of information. You deal with streams on the pre-production, research, reporting, newsgathering, sensemaking, insight-generating side of things, to develop news stories and find out where trends are going and what hasn’t been told to the public. And then once that’s done, there’s the final product, the public-facing side of the machinery - and once you’ve got something figured out, these sorts of machines can be built to run and run and run.
I’m at the European Council meeting in Brussels right now, and have a draft of the presidency conclusions in front of me. Since almost all publications report on the big political issues such as Eu’s ambitious environmental goals, I thought it could be good to look at some other issues, such as my personal favorite - IT.
But before I go into those details, there is a project you should know of that is not on the agenda at this meeting. I just heard about it this week, and it is an online campaign that is called whodoicall after Henry Kissinger’s famous quote “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”. The campaign wants oneperson to lead the EU - the same person as President of the Commission and the European Council. According to the group’s website , they stand for openness, accountability and democratic legitimacy. Two European political bloggers started the campaign, Jan Seifert and Jon Worth. Have a look!
Now, back to the power talks here in Brussels, by the way, Barroso just walked by with his huge crew. Here are some of the IT plans:
Investing in knowledge and innovation has become more and more important for EU, and the Lisbon Strategy is an important drive-force for that focus. Since its so hard for Europe to compete on price, the best solution is to create a “knowledge economy”, which all developed countries seem to strive for these days, for good reasons.
In order to reach the knowledge economy, EU wants to do these thing (this is not the full list):
Create a “fifth freedom” - free movement of knowledge over the border, in other words better mobility of researchers, students, scientist, etc.
Encourage open access to knowledge and open innovation (this is a quite wage phrase, like much of the text, but EU has actually said they will increase their use of open source, and the Commission will prefer Open Source for new IT projects).
Reporters Without Borders is arranging a 24-hours demonstration against Internet censorship, and it is time for you to raise your banner online. The really bad Internet guys are Burma, China, North Korea, Egypt, Cuba, Eritrea, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam. The whole list is here. The demonstration is part of the first “Online Free Expression Day”. They have also updated their handbook for bloggers and cyberdissidents. So, no waiting, go and put your name on the banner!
I have interviewed Reporters Without Borders previously, about media’s worst enemies.
Some quick but good links is all I got time for today:
The European Parliament has approved the establishment of EIT - the European equivalent of MIT. Commission President José Manuel Barroso says that “EIT is set to become an important feature of Europe’s innovation landscape”. I’m curious to see how this EIT invention will look like.
The tension is building up in Holland. The Koran film by a Dutch MEP will not be shown on Dutch TV. Not a single broadcaster wants to show the film in full and without breaks, the MP confirmed Friday.
Upcoming blog conference in Brussels - Euroblog 2008, March 13.-15.
Upcoming conference in Oslo, looks really interesting- Go Open 2008
A very opinionated post at Mediefundering about Norwegian editors and what they get their hands dirty on.
A fantastic book for small and big kids - Pick Me Up (in Norwegian - Kult å kunne). Looks like a computer game and tells you why Iceland is the fastest growing country in the world, what is the similarity between McDonald’s and the Roman Empire, and how it is to be a boy (finally, the mystery is revealed)!
The ambitious project started by Nicolas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), is reorganizing, according to Businessweek. Negroponte says “the organization has been operating “almost like a terrorist group, doing almost impossible things” for three years. Now, he says, it needs to be managed “more like Microsoft.”
Negroponte, who is founder and director of MIT’s Media Lab, started the project in 2005. Now, he is looking for a Kofi Annan-look-alike to lead the project and who would “view the world as a mission, not a market”.
For more info about the project, have a look here and here.
Update: Here is an article I’ve written about OLPC (Norwegian).
