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Participate in EFSEC Tesoro DEIS Hearings in Vancouver
On Tuesday, Jan 5th, your voice is needed in Vancouver!
Attend the hearing and rally- or send comments.
During our recent DEIS Hearings, 100 Vancouver residents came to Aberdeen, to give comments for us. Let's go show our solidarity in the fights against Crude Oil Terminals.
It's time for a Field Trip!
We will have a Van (or Bus), but we need to know if you can come along. Please RSVP at the email below! This will help us make plans, which need to get started before the holidays.
Our tentative schedule is to depart the (old) TOP Foods parking lot at 12 noon, Tuesday Jan 5th, which puts us in Vancouver about 3pm. We can comment and stay for the 5pm Rally. Please wear red!
Here are the details for forming your comments:
Click here to read an overview of the Tesoro Savage Oil Terminal DEIS and submit comments.
The DEIS is available on the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council's website at:www.efsec.wa.gov. The DEIS evaluates impacts of the Proposed Project from construction, onsite operations, and offsite rail and vessel transportation, including a cumulative environmental impact analysis.
Comments on the DEIS will be accepted during the comment period, which began on November 24, 2015 and will end on January 22, 2016. Comments can be submitted:
Online at: https://ts.efsec.wa.gov
By mail at:
State of Washington
Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council
P.O. Box 43172
Olympia, WA 98504
We hope you will be able to join us! Please RSVP here: email@example.com
Thank you,
Tammy Domike
Field coordinator Citizens for a Clean Harbor
Testimony and other Tips from Don Steinke:
Please put some of these items on your To-Do list.
- Compose your testimony for the January 5 public hearing on the Tesoro Savage Oil Terminal.
- Attend the Port of Vancouver Commissioners meeting at 9:30 am December 22
- Use your social media to invite people to the hearing.
- Write a letter to the editor (LTE), inviting people to the hearing.
- Submit written comments to EFSEC as you have time. Google "EFSEC Tesoro DEIS"
Topic 1: Testimony -continued below-
You will be allowed only two minutes to speak. Compose your testimony now, and it could serve as the basis for an LTE.
Big picture messaging: Although the Draft EIS is deeply flawed, it contains enough information about significant and unavoidable impacts, to reject this terminal outright.
Furthermore, the cumulative effect of all the impacts makes for an overwhelming case for rejection. Derailment spills cannot be prevented, and at best, only 14% of the oil is ever recovered.
- The agency reps are more likely to remember a story than a bunch of facts.
- Make it personal. Speak from the heart. Get in touch with your gut feelings about why this matters to you. Stick to one topic if possible. Other people will cover the other topics. Righteous indignation is good.
- If possible, describe about some errors in the draft EIS.
- If you don't know a fact, ask EFSEC to find out and include the answer in the EIS.
- Begin by saying your name and what neighborhood you live in.
- Time it, practice it, and don't be shy. The best speaker in the world reads his speeches and so can you. Take the time to adjust the microphone, I prefer to remove the mike and hold it under my chin if possible.
- Young people can be most effective addressing the older generation's failure to protect their future from climate catastrophe. My grandson says, "Turn the trains around, leave it in the ground."
- Conclude your comment with –"These impacts cannot be mitigated. Reject the terminal."
Testimony starter ideas can be found at the bottom.
Topic 2: Port of Vancouver Commissioners Open Forum
When: Tuesday, December 22, 9:30 a.m.
Where: 3103 NW Lower River Road, 98660
We'd like to pack the room.
This is Nancy Baker's last meeting before she is replaced by Eric LaBrant. We want to be polite, maybe even thanking her for her years of service.
But this is also the last Port meeting before the hearing.
Suggested speaking themes:
- What the Port didn't know when they signed the lease, could hurt us all.
- They trusted the process, but it has been sabotaged by Tesoro. Last June, EFSEC said the draft EIS needed a complete rewrite because it did not meet minimum standards. Then Tesoro told EFSEC, give us a firm date and hurry it up. EFSEC chose November 24, and the Draft EIS has been released, even though it still fails to meet minimum standards.
- Knowing what they know now, would you be happy if EFSEC recommended approval?
- How long do you want this property to be in limbo? You could cancel the lease today, next August or wait until Tesoro has run out of appeals.
Topic 3 Use Social Media to invite people to the hearing.
Looks like we will have a kick-ass hearing. So far, 400 people have committed to being there.
January 5, at the Clark County Event Center at the Fair Grounds, 1 pm to 11 pm
Use this link on FB so we can give people a reminder.
Wear red! and try to be there the whole day.
The hearing will be in a heated exhibition hall.
We'll have a rally at 5 pm with special speakers in our hospitality room, across the path from the hearing hall.
Topic 4 Write an LTE to the Columbian, ending with an invitation to the hearing.
Include this link for RSVPs sc.org/RidgefieldHearing
Keep your letter under 200 words and include your contact information for verification.
Topic 5 Submit some written comments to EFSEC as time allows.
You can use this link for a generic comment or customize it. sc.org/StopTesoro
Topic 6 Great press coverage.
Potential conflict of interest exposed by Rob Davis of the Oregonian.
Rob Davis again: Saying the draft EIS has errors and low-balls the risks.
Tesoro flyer condemned by the Carnegie Foundation
The Spellman Pipeline story
Sample testimony starters:
- My name is Pete, and I live in Washougal. Derailment spills, and fires are almost guaranteed. My daughter runs a pre-school near the tracks. Derailment spills usually catch fire. My daughter has no car. How will she be able to evacuate the children? Industry is misleading the public on preparedness and so is the Department of Ecology. Maybe it is because the same retired BNSF executive who wrote the Draft EIS, also helped write Ecology's Oil Transportation Safety Act. Fire fighters cannot protect people from an exploding oil train. You will not be able to avoid burns and deaths. You can't mitigate that.
- My name is Pete and I live along the Lewis River. I'm a steel-header. Climate Scientists have forecast increases in extreme weather events like we had in December which wiped out a million salmon in the hatchery. Climate Change is expensive. The cost of inaction is high. You cannot be part of the problem, you need to be part of the solution. It will take 1000 years for nature to recapture the carbon pollution. You can't mitigate that.
- My name is Pete, and I live along the Cowlitz, and this is our grandson Marlen. We are now dangerously close to the tipping point to non-linear irreversible global warming. Feedback loops are alarming. You have a public trust obligation to protect the climate and the atmosphere for my grandson and for yours as well. To approve this oil terminal would be reckless. "These impacts cannot be mitigated. Reject the terminal."
- My name is Pete, and I live along the Old Evergreen Highway. You need to rewrite the chapter on rail risk assessment. We have ten volunteers, and 5 newspaper reporters who are more current on oil train safety than the consultant you hired. Thirteen oil trains have crashed and burned in the last three years and many of them exploded, and we have trouble sleeping wondering if the next one will occur across the street. You cannot mitigate the impact of a derailment spill and fire in our neighborhood.
- My name is Pete and I live in West Vancouver. I have asthma. Our air is already degraded with the 60 trains that pass through every day. Add to that the routine emissions this project and associated trains will generate and I could die, particularly when there is an occasional hiccup in the equipment like there was in Anacortes twice last year. It will not be possible to mitigate for our degraded air quality. Reject the project.
- My name is Pete and I live on Hayden Island. In 1982, The Speaker of the House told Republican Governor Spellman, we want you to approve a the pipeline across the Cascades because we sorely need the jobs.That was the same argument they used in support of Trojan and Satsop nuclear power plants. They got those jobs but Trojan has been shut down and the Satsop projects were discontinued after $5 billion were wasted. We need to invest in the future not the past. There will be more local jobs in wind and solar, than in an oil terminal.Republican Governor Spellman defied his own party and President Reagan to reject the oil pipeline. He said the people don't want us to spoil the state. We still don't. Tell that to Governor Inslee.
- My name is Pete and I'm from the town of Skamania. Our fire district passed a resolution opposing the oil terminal because our volunteer fire department cannot access much of the rail line, much less protect us from an oil train fire. Our resolution needs to be included in the EIS. A derailment spill and fire in our neighborhood cannot be avoided or mitigated.
- I'm Pete and I'm from the Hough Neighborhood. Our neighborhood along with 13 others in the city, passed resolutions opposing the oil terminal. Make that part of the EIS. The governor needs to know that. Also include the official resolutions of opposition or concern from the Cities of Vancouver, Portland, Mosier, Hood River, The Dalles, Washougal, and Spokane. Also include the resolution of opposition from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Columbia Gorge Commission, and the Washington State Council of Firefighters, and Commissioner Goldmark and the ten tribal leaders that co-signed his Op-Ed 15 months ago.
According to your draft EIS, this proposed terminal would generate plenty of significant adverse impacts that can't be avoided or mitigated. Reject the terminal.
Thanks for being part of the fight.
Don and Alona Steinke


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03 June 2009
Move to Australia and avoid the recession
Australia may have bucked the global trend and avoided a recession in the first quarter, making it attractive to those wishing to emigrate to Australia or take up an Australian working holiday visa.
The good news for the Australian economy was delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, although he warned, "we're not out of the woods yet".
Australia gross domestic product grew 0.4 per cent in the March quarter, bouncing back from a 0.6 per cent drop in the last quarter of 2008.
In comparison, the UK economy shrank 1.9 per cent in the first three months of this year, the biggest contraction in three decades and a clear incentive for UK residents keen to emigrate to Australia to start making the move now.
To stimulate growth the Australian Federal Government has put about $52 billion into the economy. The Reserve Bank has also more than halved the official rate since September to ease pressures on households and give them more spending abilities.
The jobless rate in Australia also stands at 5.4 per cent, while the unemployment rate in the UK rose to 7.1 per cent - up 0.8 per cent over the quarter.
To find out if you are eligible for skilled migration to Australia, take the free online assessment to discuss your options for emigrating to Australia.

subset: commoncrawl


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You can create a manifest of a system immediately after an initial Solaris software installation. This type of manifest will provide you with a baseline for comparing changes to the same system over time. Or, you can use this manifest to compare with the manifests for different systems. For example, if you take a snapshot of each system on your network, and then compare each test manifest with the control manifest, you can quickly determine what you need to do to synchronize the test system with the baseline configuration.
Assume the Primary Administrator role, or become superuser.
The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.
After installing the Solaris software, create a control manifest and redirect the output to a file.
# bart create options > control-manifest
Specifies the root directory for the manifest. All paths specified by the rules will be interpreted relative to this directory. All paths reported in the manifest will be relative to this directory.
Accepts a list of individual files to be cataloged, either on the command line or read from standard input.
Is the name of the rules file for this manifest. Note that –, when used with the -r option, will be read the rules file from standard input.
Turns off content signatures for all regular files in the file list. This option can be used to improve performance. Or, you can use this option if the contents of the file list are expected to change, as in the case of system log files.
Examine the contents of the manifest.
Save the manifest for future use.
Choose a meaningful name for the manifest. For example, use the system name and date that the manifest was created.
If you run the bart create command without any options, information about every file that is installed on the system will be cataloged. Use this type of manifest as a baseline when you are installing many systems from a central image. Or, use this type of manifest to run comparisons when you want to ensure that the installations are identical.
For example:
# bart create ! Version 1.0 ! Thursday, December 04, 2003 (16:17:39) # Format: #fname D size mode acl dirmtime uid gid #fname P size mode acl mtime uid gid #fname S size mode acl mtime uid gid #fname F size mode acl mtime uid gid contents #fname L size mode acl lnmtime uid gid dest #fname B size mode acl mtime uid gid devnode #fname C size mode acl mtime uid gid devnode / D 1024 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3fd9ea47 0 0 /.java D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f8dc04d 0 10 /.java/.userPrefs D 512 40700 user::rwx,group::---,mask:--- other:--- 3f8dc06b 010 /.java/.userPrefs/.user.lock.root F 0 100600 user::rw- group::---,mask:---,other:--- 3f8dc06b 0 10 - /.java/.userPrefs/.userRootModFile.root F 0 100600 user::rw-, group::---,mask:---,other:--- 3f8dc0a1 0 10 - . . . /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/install/depend F 932 100644 user::rw-, group::r--,mask:r--,other:r-- 3c23a19e 0 0 - /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/pkginfo F 594 100644 user::rw- group::r--,mask:r--,other:r-- 3f81e416 0 0 - /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmad/save D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e416 0 0 /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWdtmaz D 512 40755 user::rwx,group::r-x mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e41b 0 0 /var/sadm/pkg/TSIpgxw/save D 512 40755 user::rwx group::r-x,mask:r-x,other:r-x 3f81e892 0 0 . . .
Each manifest consists of a header and entries. Each manifest file entry is a single line, depending on the file type. For example, for each manifest entry in the preceding output, type F specifies a file and type D specifies a directory. Also listed is information about size, content, user ID, group ID, and permissions. File entries in the output are sorted by the encoded versions of the file names to correctly handle special characters. All entries are sorted in ascending order by file name. All nonstandard file names, such as those that contain embedded newline or tab characters, have the nonstandard characters quoted before being sorted.
Lines that begin with ! supply metadata about the manifest. The manifest version line indicates the manifest specification version. The date line shows the date on which the manifest was created, in date form. See the date(1) man page. Some lines are ignored by the manifest comparison tool. Ignored lines include blank lines, lines that consist only of white space, and comments that begin with #.


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Diet Product: Meal Replacement Shake French Vanilla
Product Description: Meal Replacement Shake French Vanilla
Bariatric Fusion Meal Replacement
Reviewed and tested by over 3000 bariatric patients, Bariatric Fusion Meal Replacements provide an ideal combination of taste, texture and nutrition to meet the needs of individuals both before and after bariatric surgery. A highly experienced team of bariatric practitioners worked together to make sure that these low-carb meal replacements shakes provided the highest quality whey protein isolate combined with the proper balance of fiber, vitamins and minerals. Good taste and good nutrition is a winning combination.
Bariatric Fusion Meal Replacement Key Features:
- 27 grams of medical grade whey protein isolate per serving
- 23 vitamins and minerals
- Low Carb – 4g Net Carbs*
- 5 grams of fiber per serving
- Lactose, aspartame, and gluten free
- No sugar added
* g Net Carbs = Total Carbohydrates – Fiber – Sugar Alcohols


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I was so excited when I first saw these victorian jars. I couldn't wait to make wood wick candles in them. The pewter top sets it off. I haven't put my usual organza ribbon on these as I'm still thinking about what I like the best. Smelling the lilac made me think of spring and all of the wonderful things that come with that time of year. Skiing is so much fun and I look forward to going out into the woods and along the edge of the fields everyday. There are so many things to see. There are always tracks from one kind of animal or another. Today we saw fox tracks and rodent tracks. We saw many deer tracks as well. It was a very fast ski and a great deal of fun! One of the other fragrances in my candles was Lily of the Valley. What a wonderful smell. If you close your eyes you can imagine standing in a patch of them. Such a tiny flower and such an incredible aroma! I just love seeing them in early spring.
What a wonderful smell. If you close your eyes you can imagine standing in a patch of them. Such a tiny flower and such an incredible aroma! I just love seeing them in early spring. Another flower that is amazing is lavender. I've yet to get it to come through the winter but I will keep trying none the less. Lavender has a most wonderful aroma. It is used in aromatherapy for relaxation. I've had my experiences with this for sure. This past fall I bought some lavender buds to put in my soap. I was so excited to make the first bars of soap with lavender and I was so proud of how nice they looked. It was all quite temporary however. My mom put some by her kitchen sink. She liked it as much as me. Over the course of a few days, the lavender began to turn brown. It looked like my soap had bugs! My neice reached to use it at my mom's and jumped and threw the soap bar thinking it had bugs on it. Obviously I have some work to do in this department. I am
very proud of my lavender candles. I like the colors and so do my customers. I'll have to keep working with the soap to get it right but this wood wick soy wax candle came out really well. As I think about spring and the warm weather, I do start to wish for the end of winter in a way but usually it's when the snow has melted and there's no chance of it coming back that I am ready for spring and summer to arrive. Until they do, I'll keep making as much as I can to be ready for the upcoming crafting season and the sales that'll have in the mean time.


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Hello! Sorry it's been a while, the weather has been BEAUUUTIFUL up North, which if you are from England will know this doesn't happen all too often. This weather only means one thing, evening rounds of golf after work YES!!!
Anyway, its Open week, actually there's only a day to go so let's get to it!
I love the Open, I've been the past few years and we've made it a tradition ever since. We're off to Hoylake on Sunday for the final round and I cannot wait! I think this year more than ever it is completely wide open.
Rose, Mcilroy, Mcdowell are all in with a shout along with half the field, annnnnnnnd Tigers back! Tiger coming back is always good for golf and of course adds a little more excitement to the competition. Whether you are a player or a spectator, you want Tiger there over the weekend!
So my tips, take these with a pinch of salt as I really can't call this one!
The actual course is a 7,312 yard par 72 with 4 par 5s that are so vital to finding a winner – The last time it was held at Hoylake in 2006, Tiger shot a remarkable -14 on those 16 trips to the longer holes and it was a big contribution to his -18 total that won him the trophy by 2 shots from Chris DiMarco.
His game plan? Tee to green master class. With the weather in everyone's favour he found 85.71% of fairways (1st in Driving Accuracy for the week) and 80.56% of GIR (1st for GIR.)
You are going to need a solid and accurate game from tee to green in order to win any Open Championship. If you do find the hay then it is just as important how you recover, therefore scramblers always seem to do well.
Justin Rose, coming off a win up in Scotland Rose's game seems in fine form ready for Hoylake, is it his time to lift the claret jug?
G-Mac The French open saw Mcdowell as he ground his way to another European title. His all round game suits Hoylake, getting up and down is what he does best, he's a grinder, this sets up for him very nicely.
Rickie Fowler, we have been raving about Rickie all year, we can't stop now, he has to win at some point right?
Webb Simpson, you will NOT win the Open without a good putting stroke. Actually you won't win a lot without a good putting stroke, luckily this man has one of the best putters in the game! 2 top 3 finishes in his last 4 will also fill the American with confidence.
Zach Johnson, again another contender, 2nd last week at the John Deere, his short game is impeccable, I think he will contend for a top spot as he picks apart Royal Liverpool.
There's so many to pick from this week, it really is tough to call, outsiders for me are,
Shane Lowry, we saw enough of him at the Scottish Open to suggest he could be in for a career defining week, a game suited to the links courses with both of his wins coming from the coastal ranks. Shane is arguably playing some of the best golf of his career right now.
Danny Willet's game is right there at the moment, being an Englishman he will feel right at home on Hoylake and with a decent showing at Scotland he could be a real outsider..Could be.
Do you guys have any tips? Or have you been to Hoylake before and have any course tips, where to go, stand, which grandstands to go to etc, get in touch and let us know, otherwise enjoy the golf!
That's all for now folks, thanks again!
I'll have couple of course reviews coming up soon and lots more to come, stay tuned. As always if you enjoy my Ramblings you can follow me on twitter @shaun_lloyd4.


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Daylight Savings Time has arrived � a sure sign that spring isn�t far behind, right?
We�re not sure Ma Nature got the memo.
Her days grow longer. Birds tweet their springtime love songs. And daffodils push through the ground to herald the arrival of a new season.
Still, Cleveland County temperatures swing wildly. One day you�re wrapped in winter�s wooly garb. The next day it�s shirt sleeves and sunscreen.
Hard to tell whether March came roaring in like a lion, making it a challenge to know whether it will go out like a sweet little lamb. Or vice versa.
The fickle third month of this new year can�t make up its mind. Does March want to preview the welcome warmth of spring? Or is its preference a last blast of winter?
Just when you think you have it figured out, March interrupts a few sunny days with a surprise afternoon shower � of sleet!
Whatever today�s high and low, this is the day our clocks officially welcome a new season.
Did you spring forward one hour?
Check all your timepieces to make sure. And consider DST � aka Daylight Safety Time � your prompt to replace batteries in smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
You now have an extra hour of daylight to get those and other tasks done � or to enjoy the pleasures of warmer days ahead. They will come, as March marches on and April arrives with a flush of tulips and azaleas.
Who isn�t ready for spring after the winter we�ve had?
Ten days, Ma Nature. That�s all the time you have to bring spring to Cleveland County. We have March 20 marked on our calendars in homes and businesses from Grover to Casar. We�re counting the days until the buds burst with springtime color and perfect temperatures greet us every morning.
Got the memo?


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Evelien Klokman's blog | iinfo TZANEEN
The Making of Amarula
Arrive at Kruger National Park!
The Little Five
Arrive at Kruger National Park!
Stay in Phalaborwa
Need to be in Phalaborwa for business? Want to visit Phalaborwa during your next holiday? You are in luck as you have a lovely variety of accommodation establishments to choose from!
In Phalaborwa town you will find accommodation in the quiet residential areas or on the edge of town in a more bush-like setting. Wherever you stay in town you are never more than 10 minutes away from the Kruger National Park! The town is safe and clean and the accommodations match that feeling.
Take a Cruise on the Olifants River
Ba-Phalaborwa – The Facts & Figures
Province : Limpopo Province
District Municipality : Mopani District
Population : 150,637
Households : 41,115
Major Towns : Phalaborwa, Lulekani, Namakgale, Gravelotte
Rural areas : Mashishimale, Majenje, Makushane, Ga-Maseke
Geographic Area : 7462 km2
Mayor : Pule Shayi PJ
Languages : Sotho, Pedi, Tsonga, Afrikaans, English
Established : 1957
Famous Phalaborwian : Dale Steyn-South African National cricketer
Welcome to Phalaborwa – Town of Two Summers
South Africans think it's at the end of the road and international tourists wonder how to pronounce it! Phalaborwa (pronounced as Palaborwa) is indeed situated at the end of a road; the R71 in the Limpopo Province. The road leads straight into Kruger National Park.
Phalaborwa is the only town in South Africa that is situated directly on the border of the iconic wildlife reserve. Where else in the world can you come across a hippo wondering the streets at night, have warthogs graze on the side of the road and hear lions roar while you enjoy dinner in a local restaurant?


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Clay Shirky - Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press 2011
Clay Shirky, Alex S. JonesPosted 5 December 2011 by leo
In October 2011, the well-known internet expert Clay Shirky, a professor of New Media at New York University, has given a remarkable lecture on the state of Freedom of the Press in Western democracy. He makes a comparison between the technical, territorial, political and legal implications of the Watergate scandal, the recent publications of Collateral Murder and the documents of Cablegate that were published online by Wikileaks. He concludes that they are inherently different and builds his argument on an analysis of incidents long after the Gutenberg revolution in the 17th century where publications outside of a national territory could not be controlled by its legislation. The future implications for the protection of Freedom of Speech are, however, in no way encouraging in Shirky´s view, he holds that national regulation of Free Speech in democratic countries is at stake. " (…) this is a dangerous moment for free speech. Not because we know how nation states and post national media environments interact, but because we don't. (…) And the reaction to that change, the reaction to the enormous increase in free speech as an actual practical capability could leave us in a considerably worse state than we are now. (…) There is a lot of attention paid when thinking about freedom of speech, particularly as regards to the use of the internet, on the world's autocracies, on Iran, on China, on Cuba. But of course there is nothing new there. (…) The threat we face now is coming from the world's democracies." For this, he is giving recent expamples of South Africa or Italy and argues that the mainstream media´s unwillingness to defend its new internet competitors is the most disappointing. If this is not changing, "we have no standing to lecture autocracies" any more. An extensive Question & Answers session concludes this outstanding event at Harvard University.
- Date of recording: Wed, 2011-12-14
- Language(s) spoken: English
hyperaudio Player
Introduction by Alex Jones, on Dick Salant
Clay Shirky: Thank you so much, Alex. It is really a pleasure and an honor to be back at Shorenstein. I'm of course here to talk about freedom of the press. And I want in particular to talk about freedom of the press as a relationship between actual technical capability and a set of legal and policy restraints that envelope and shape that capability.
This is an ancient pattern. It well pre-dates the founding of the United States. In fact I think I can give you an idea of how ancient this tension is between regulatory power and technological capability by telling a story of a media revolution, but not our media revolution, the media revolution from 500 years ago.
The Technical Capability for the Press in the 16th Century and its Legal and Policy Restraints
06:30 After Johannes Gutenberg perfected movable type it spread through Europe and after a while a tradition of publishing bibles in vulgar languages sprung up, French and Italian, Spanish and German and, in 1526, English. A man named William Tyndale had translated the bible into English and proposed to print and sell copies to the English. Now, the Catholic Church whose considered opinion on this matter had always been clear, if Latin was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for you, frowned on the production of these bibles. And in particular the Bishop of London was especially alarmed at news of an English bible being created. And so he sought to forestall the English bible getting into the hands of English citizens. Unfortunately for him, Tyndale and the bibles were not in England, they were in Antwerp for the obvious reason. And so the Bishop of London's power did not go across the water and Plan B was needed. Plan B was hatched in the person of a man named Augustine Packington who was a wealthy British Catholic merchant who signed up for the job, went to Antwerp, found Tyndale, whereupon, not 100 percent understanding the economics of the printing press, he proceeded to buy every existent copy of the English language bible and then burn them. Thus creating an event that has only been (Page 2) whispered about in the halls of publishing institutions since, a guaranteed 100 percent revenue on a single transaction alongside an enormous marketing boost and zero loss in demand.
It is hard to imagine a scenario more opposite to what the Bishop of London desired than that scenario. And this, of course, was but one skirmish in the long struggle between the Catholic Church and the increasingly restive publishers in the intellectual foment of Europe in the 1500's. It was a period that came to be called the Counter Reformation and the church invented strategy after strategy to attempt to grapple with. One of their other strategies was to draw up, for the first time, an index of banned books. They didn't draw up such an index until the 1500's because the index of banned books was not a response to heresy. By that point the Catholic Church had been fighting off heresy for the thick end of a thousand years. It wasn't even a response to heresy written down in books. There had been heretical codices for as long as the Codex had existed as a form. The index of banned books was a response to abundance. The threat that the Catholic Church was trying to see off was that the heretical books were now widely available, written in languages that people who didn't read Latin could understand and, most alarming of all, they were becoming cheaper by the year. Now, I will apologize for those of you who haven't seen the movie, I'm going to give away the ending, the Counter-Reformation failed to counter the reformation. And so this list of strategies that the Catholic Church had tried over this period ultimately ended in a kind of a stalemate. And the Catholic Church called off the Counter- Reformation in 1648. Now, in almost any year in the 1600's the church announcing that the Counter-Reformation had ceased would be a good candidate for most important event of the year, but not in 1648 because something much more important happened in that year as a function of the same truce, which is the end of the Thirty Years War and the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia. What the Treaty of Westphalia said was we are going to divide Europe into well defined nations states. And we are going to retire our armies inside those borders and cease fighting with one another.
The De-Globalization of the Media Environments after the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th Century
10:19 And so the countries of Europe and later the world as (Page 3) the model spread took on the characteristic of geographically continuously areas, largely culturally a linguistic coherent populations and single well identified governments. And a curious thing happened to the media environment in light of the Treaty of Westphalia. It de-globalized. The media environment in the late 1600's was less global than the media environment of the early 1500's. No more printing things in Antwerp to be read in London, no more printing things in Venice to be read in Madrid. Typically media, after Westphalia, was produced in the country where the consumers were. There were a lot of reasons for this. Some of them were quite practical. It's cheaper to print things near and ship them near than to print them far away and ship them far away. Some of it had to do with novelty. As more people started writing books the people who owned the printing presses had to be where the authors were and most of the people writing in French were in France. And the borders of the nations state, whatever else they became, became zones of sharply reduced information flow, such that it was possible to have two very different regulatory regimes controlling the press, operating side by side in different countries with very little conflict between. Now, a lot of media has been invented between 1648 and now. We´ve seen the telegraph and the phonograph and the photograph, we've seen motion pictures and the evanescence of all of same into the ether with radio and television.
But curiously, despite all of the subsequent media revolutions, the media environment has stayed nationalized. Media has tended to be produced in the country where it is consumed. And that has been especially true of political media. So despite all of the new kinds of media invented, the model worked out in the aftermath of the Treaty of Westphalia has remained intact for several centuries. There are several reasons for this. Some of them are economic. The enormous amount of money required to own a printing press or to own a broadcast station can be most easily raised within the nation where the consumers of that medium are. Some of this is technological. It's easier for a radio station to broadcast near than to broadcast far. Some of this is regulatory. At several critical points in the 20th Century, the United States had to make choices. The United States Government had to make choices about regulatory regimes that would favor either a large number of small broadcasters or a (Page 4)small number of large broadcasters. And it consistently made the latter choice.
How the Publication of Collateral Murder in 2010 ended a Period of a Nationalized Media Environment after 360 Years
13:10 The United States prefers to work with a set of relatively large, relatively stable, relatively long lived media institutions. And this existence of national encapsulation, the nation state as both a platform and a container for free speech allowed us to essentially have it both ways in our current free speech environment. We could have an incredibly broad constitutional protection for free speech and we could have a series of laws that said, well, you can't libel people and you can't reveal trade secrets and here are the controls on obscenity. And because the entire conversation took place within a national matrix it was possible for the legal system to balance out those competing interests, because the whole system was contained by those borders. If you want to see how vital the national context still is, 350 years after its invention, I can do no better than to quote Marcus Brauchli, who gave the Salant Lecture last year. And in that lecture he told a story about the Pentagon coming to The Washington Post, his paper, asking that paper not to publish a story that the Pentagon knew they were working on. Now, Brauchli's point of course is that the most powerful government in the world could not require or demand or order the newspaper to do anything. All they could do, said Brauchli, was to discuss the national interest and ask the editor to weigh the national interest against the decision to publish and then leave the editor to make his decision. And it is indeed a glory of the American situation that our government cannot order our media outlets not to publish things. That was the part of the story that Brauchli was telling. But I want to call your attention to something he mentioned just in passing and called almost no attention to, which is the conversation the Pentagon had with The Post was about the national interest. The Pentagon could sit in that room and assume that everyone there was a citizen, that the institution they were dealing with was incorporated in the United States and subject not just to its laws but to its long term political context. And that even if they disagreed, everyone in that conversation could be said to have something like the national interest of the United States at heart. And the model for that conversation began in the middle of the 1600's. And in this country ended last April with the publication of a video dubbed Collateral Murder (Page 5)and put up online by the online publishing site WikiLeaks.
Collateral Murder was the opening salvo of the release of a very large cache of State Department documents from the State Department's secure network. And the Collateral Murder video was a precursor to the release of a quarter of a million cables from the State Department, first filtered and redacted and then later, sadly, unfiltered and unredacted. And as this happened and as people came to understand what WikiLeaks was doing, people cast around for the parallels to look for in the history of freedom of the press. And very often in conversation the parallels that came up were the ones that everyone reaches for as students of contemporary American democracy in media. The New York Times decision to publish the Pentagon Papers and The Washington Post's refusal to reveal the identity of the informant in the Watergate case known as Deep Throat. But actors who were in those situations, Bill Keller at The New York Times, Floyd Abrams who was the lawyer who argued the Pentagon Papers case have explicitly denied the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate case are the apposite comparisons here. And although I disagree with those men as to why I think they are correct, I don't believe that the Pentagon Papers gives us the framework we need to think about WikiLeaks. Compare the conversation with Marcus Brauchli and the conversation with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. There was no way the State Department could go to WikiLeaks and have a conversation that hinged on or even involved anything called the national interest. Julian is not a U.S. citizen, he is an Australian citizen. He was not operating on U.S. soil, he was in Iceland. And so the Pentagon Papers, conversation took place entirely within the national matrix. And the WikiLeaks conversation took place outside of it. I don't think that the apposite comparison is the Pentagon Papers. I think the apposite comparison for WikiLeaks is William Tyndale's bible. Julian is the publisher operating on remote soil. Reykjavik is our Antwerp. It is the environment that is far enough away from us that we can't get there. And the role of the Catholic Church is this time played by the United States Government. The most powerful force that discovers its power stops at the water's edge and it can't reach out and affect the media environment in the way that it would like.
The Political Escalation around the Publication of the Cablegate Documents and its Causes
18:46 And in an even worse (Page 6) parallel the histrionic but unfocused reactions from various parts of the U.S. Government not least, alas, the Senate, called significantly more attention to those documents than there would have been otherwise. And caused the people at WikiLeaks so much consternation that they decided to distribute alternate versions of the encrypted file as a kind of doomsday device should WikiLeaks in fact be taken down. And this is partly because WikiLeaks was being pursued via extra legal means to have its hosting arrangements taken away, to have itself cut off from financial services via the credit system and so on. And the presence of those encrypted documents was one of the precursors to those documents finally being decoded. And for people who had risked their lives to try to help the United States now being subjected to plain identification in clear text. From Tyndale's bible to WikiLeaks I think history has repeated itself, but this time it was the second time that was tragedy. Now, I don't want to leave you with the impression that WikiLeaks has caused this post national media environment. In fact WikiLeaks' principle tool here wasn't there servers or their software or their people, WikiLeaks principle tool was the internet. When you have a medium that allows data to move from Kandahar to Reykjavik and from there to Madrid and London and New York and to do so quickly and privately and above all cheaply, you have a medium that makes it easy to create these kinds of platforms. But because it's the internet driving this post national media environment different countries discover this change at different times. In Canada in 1994 during a particularly lurid sex crimes trial called the Homolka Teale trial a Canadian judge enjoined the press from discussing the trial. And as had happened in the past this successfully stopped magazines and newspapers and radio and television from discussing the trial. But the Canadian judge discovered it could not stop conversation on America Online and they could not stop conversation on Usenet.
Examples of How Irrelevant the Borders of National Legislation have become in a Networked Media Environment
21:03 The national border had not become porous so much as irrelevant. Five years ago in Italy a documentary made about the priestly abuse scandal, first discovered and documented in this city by the Boston Globe, that documentary movie was going to be shown to the Italian people on RAI, the Italian broadcaster. And so the Italian Parliament said, well, no, actually you are not going to do that. We forbid (Page 7) the national broadcaster from showing this documentary, at which point it was uploaded to YouTube and it stopped mattering. Just last year I was talking to The Guardian's correspondent in Johannesburg who said I used to write about South Africa so that people in England could read about it. But with The Guardian's online presence and the number of South Africans connected to the internet, I now have more readers in South Africa than I have in England. So an Englishman in South Africa writes for an English paper to be read by South Africans. It's not how you would route the news if you were looking at a map, but sometimes other things trump geography, and increasingly that is the case. Now, if I had to pick a spokesperson for the complicated and confused state of national regulation and post national media, I would pick Judge Eady, a British judge who was asked to weigh in on a free speech case earlier this summer. A British footballer was rumored to have had an affair with a young lady, not his wife, who was both a model and a star on a popular reality television show. So the tabloid headlines, they basically write themselves. But the footballer took out what is called a super injunction. A super injunction is a way of not merely instructing the British press not to write about something, but also instructing them not to mention the fact that there is something they can't talk about. It is like double secret probation for newspapers. And this lasted, as you might imagine, all of about 35 seconds. Tens of thousands of people on Twitter showed up and said, hey, Ryan Giggs is having an affair with Imogen Thomas, how about that? And when it was pointed out to Judge Eady that the super injunction had been utterly ineffective he said if the British populace is going to start behaving like publishing outlets they are also going to have to start learning that the law applies to them as well. So stay with that irony for a minute. The whole point of a super injunction is not to tell the public something. But if every member of the public is a media outlet you have to tell them the thing that they are not supposed to know in order that they can obey the law, thus eviscerating your court order by enforcing it. So Judge Eady gets my vote for the not thinking things all the way through award, an award somewhat debased alas by the fact that it's given out about once an hour in the current media environment. (Page 8)
Dangerous Reactions to the New Situation by Democracies
24:10 So this is a dangerous moment for free speech. Not because we know how nation states and post national media environments interact, but because we don't. We don't. And the reaction to that change, the reaction to the enormous increase in free speech as an actual practical capability could leave us in a considerably worse state than we are now. There is a lot of attention paid when thinking about freedom of speech, particularly as regards to the use of the internet, on the world's autocracies, on Iran, on China, on Cuba. But of course there is nothing new there. Autocracies have always expended an extraordinary amount of resources to keep their people from communicating with one another or with the outside world. The threat we face now is coming from the world's democracies. South Africa, which has discovered that a press that has more international coverage and more transparent access to data is getting uncomfortably close to some ties between the president's family and the issuing of state contracts for things like mining rights, has proposed a press tribunal which basically would have, if enacted, the right to oversee the interaction of all of the press operating in that country, whether they were incorporated locally or globally. South Korea in the aftermath of protests that shook Lee Myung-bak's government in the middle of 2008 has enacted a real names law in which a South Korean citizen wanting to do so much as comment on a video must register their real name with that site in a way that is directly accessible to the South Korean Government on demand. And to make it clear that this is not about increasing personal accountability but decreasing group coordination, the law only applies to sites with 10,000 or more users. This is not actually about individual behavior, this is about group synchronization. South Korea, because of this, is the first nation to get itself banned from YouTube by Google rather than comply with the law. In Italy right now they are debating a law which says anyone who has something written about them online that they don't like has the right to demand that that same site publish a reply, unredacted and uncommented on in full within 48 hours or be fined 12,000 Euros. Here's two things that law doesn't propose. It doesn't propose that the accuracy of the statement is any sort of defense at all and it doesn't propose any (Page 9)exemption for political speech. That may go through the Italian Congress next week. Now, we would expect the governments of the world, even democracies, to be somewhat iffy about this.
Democracies have always been fitful supporters of free speech and when they do support increases of free speech they have typically supported it only incrementally. So it is disappointing but not surprising that the threats are coming from democracies. What's disappointing and surprising is the threat that is coming from mainstream media. Because they have typically been the most active, most vocal proponents of free speech and the most active opponents of states to restrict that speech. But in this case they are curiously quiet. Now, one need allude only lightly, especially in this gathering, to the commercial and competitive forces unleashed by new internet competitors as felt by the group of organizations we have learned to call traditional media. And to the affront to professional dignity to see citizens calling themselves publishers merely because they have software that has a button that says publish. But even then, even then the temptation to assume that there is a separation that can be cleanly and coherently drawn between traditional publishers and the new participants in the media environment is pernicious. Bill Keller has gone out of his way to characterize WikiLeaks as a source, to talk about WikiLeaks in a way that explicitly denies that what WikiLeaks is doing is in any way related to what The New York Times is doing. But Joe Lieberman, God bless him, intellectually honest to the last, gave the game away last fall on the Senate floor. When people were looking for a way to charge WikiLeaks with a crime Lieberman got up and said we should absolutely do that and we should go after The New York Times too. Because Lieberman recognized what Keller denies, which is that any legal rationale for going after WikiLeaks is a legal rationale for going after The New York Times. And what Lieberman fantasizes about is re- adjudicating the Pentagon Papers case, this time with The New York Times in the losing role. Alex, I wish I had better tidings to bring you on the happy occasion of Shorenstein's 25th Anniversary, but alas, I don't.
Three Remarks on Why the Defence of Free Speech has been Entering into a Whole New Era: Not all Counter Reformations might fail
29:38 I wish I could tell you that the expansion in free speech occasioned by these new tools is a lock, a done deal so baked (Page 10) into the environment that it can't be uprooted and it can't be reversed. Sadly that is not true. So what I will say instead, three things.
First, twenty years from now we are going to look back on this period and we are either going to recognize it as the beginning of a revolution or as a funny interregnum. Because what the democracies of the world are asking for, like the index of banned books, is not a sensible return to a previously acceptable status quo, but instead a vast new set of powers unlike anything they had enjoyed previously. And that if we are going to see this period as a revolution and not as an interregnum we have to sign the democracies of the world and particularly the United States of America up for the idea that freedom of speech is something that has to be defended. It can't be allowed to be eroded piecemeal. In particular we have been quite good at talking about control of speech to the governments in Tehran and Havana and Beijing. But we have to get that good and better at holding ourselves to those standards and in having that conversation with the governments of Seoul and Rome and Pretoria. If we don't hold ourselves to those standards and we don't hold our democratic allies to those standards we have no standing to lecture autocracies at all.
The second thing I will say is that if we are going to see this period as a revolution and not as an interregnum we have to sign up the traditional media outlets for defense of freedom of speech, even on the part of the new entries. Yea unto the lowliest blogger. There is no way to draw a clean line that said media, essentially media incorporated before 2000, one set of rules to the left, people publishing after 2000, another set of rules to the right. Rationales for restricting speech are rationales for restricting speech and the mainstream media needs to understand that notwithstanding the competitive pressures and the affront to professional dignity, with the digitization of all media well underway, there is only one media environment that matters and controls in that media environment will apply to all participants.
We need to be very careful about thinking through the logic of this because we may be setting the stage, not just for the next few months, the next few years, but for the foreseeable future. And the third thing I'll say is that if you wanted to take that problem on you (Page 11)would want to do it from inside an institution that is committed in equal parts to thinking about the press and about public policy. I can think of nothing I would recommend more highly to Shorenstein in the next 25 years than thinking through the possibility of political speech in a post national environment and securing for ourselves some of the advantages we enjoyed in securing political speech in a national environment. We could do this. We could see that this increase in freedom of expression, the practical lived experience for billions of people worldwide remains part of the global fabric of conversation. But we could also lose. Not all counter reformations fail. Last time maybe we just got lucky. Thanks. (Applause)
MR. JONES: Clay is of course going to be taking questions and if you have, if you would, line up at the mics. I want to ask the first one, Clay, if I may. You described eloquently the national framework that allowed the United States to have a First Amendment, but also had such things as libel laws, recognition of genuine secrets and so forth. In the world that you see and the world that you see coming, is there any framework for those kinds of constraints or is effectively the only alternative to having a kind of autocratic control of these efforts to have a free speech that cannot probably be muted at all anyway, is there any mechanism for similar kinds of constraints that do put what I think most of us would say are sensible and civilized constraints even on free speech?
MR. SHIRKY: Yes, there will be, I think — let me actually back up and say, first of all, one of the things I came to when writing Cognitive Surplus, the most recent book, is what I started calling the revolutionary's dilemma, which is to say that the more serious you are about believing something is a revolution the more you are confessing that you can't predict the future. That if it's a revolution it can't be predictable. And if it's predictable it can't be a revolution. So my ability to see the move into the future that you are asking about is quite limited. That having been said, I don't believe that we will ever end up in a completely unregulated free speech environment. We've never had one. I don't think we ever will (Page 12) have one. I think the risk right now is that we don't yet know what this looks like. And that especially at this level of struggle around free speech with this relatively new capability, almost all of the constraints that are being imagined are constraints that are fantasies about reversing the flow of time. But I do think we will hash out constraints over the long term. And I think that there are at least two axes on which that can happen. One is participation among respective nation states in the same way we work on financial regulations now. And there are both rogue actors and good actors, but once we are able to identify who is whom, we can start to negotiate free speech. Famously now controlled the most pernicious forms of speech, e.g., child pornography, are worked out in exactly that framework. The other is that in the early days of the WikiLeaks, in the Cablegate publications there was a commitment on the part of WikiLeaks to both filter and redact the files. And the fact that the files unfiltered and unredacted was in a way a side effect of WikiLeaks concern about U.S. concern, but there was a moment there where you could imagine that however much the United States didn't want that material to be published that it would have remained filtered had the reaction on both sides been different. And I think there are some basic human motivations around not getting people killed, for example, that do seem to apply to actors, even when you can't rely on the national interest as being the constraint. But the key thing I think is that we need to build up those norms in negotiation and over time and that what I'm afraid of right now is that even the democracies of the world are not looking for new negotiated norms, but rather the button that says reverse flow. MR. JONES: If you would identify yourself, please.
FROM THE FLOOR: My name is Bernice Buresh. I work with public communication. I wonder if you would comment on the tendency of employers attempting to restrict the free speech of their employees. The example is there are many hospitals now that have very, very broad restrictions on nurses using the social media, not just in the workplace, but beyond that and what it's doing, it's terrorizing nurses, but it's also preventing them from getting clinical support, such as tweeting (Page 13) each other and so on. They're really — I think the bottom line of this is to prevent nurses, to prevent nurses from organizing in any way.
MR. SHIRKY: As with the South Korea real names issue. It's interesting, when Alex first invited me to come here and talk about this I had originally thought to talk about essentially everything. And quickly talked myself out of that idea. But the other huge moving piece in all of this is the tension between the commercial desires of the platforms that offer up these tools for speech and the regulatory environment of commercial entities versus the requirements of democracy to have an environment open for free speech. We don't have a public sphere online. We have a corporate sphere that tolerates public speech. And we have extraordinary legal unclarity about that. This is essentially a readjudication of the Pruneyard case in the United States context in which — actually a series of cases in which the question around free speech at commercial malls, as commercial space in the United States became, rather, as public space in the United States became commercially enclosed, the justices at both the state and federal level wrestled very uneasily and to my mind have achieved nothing more than a kind of loose patchwork of compromise around whether or not people get to exercise free speech rights in commercial space. So that issue I think is core to this. I will also observe that most of the concern around people using this media seems to my eye to center around women. That it is not in fact a — it is not typically a general concern. When you look at the number of people who have their private lives exposed and are then made to suffer for it, disproportionately female. I can't tell whether or not this is a press bias in covering those cases or whether the harms are in fact unevenly distributed. Always when you look through the lens of the press you see two layers. But it is interesting to me and I suspect relevant to a nurses groups or a nurses union that there may be a gender aspect to this kind of control. You wonder, for example, whether or not doctors are subjected to the same restrictions. And that, I don't know whether there are any legal avenues for that access. But that does seem to me to be a case, does seem to me to be a common element of these kinds of cases.
FROM THE FLOOR: Clay, hi. Nik Gowing, nice to see you again.
MR. SHIRKY: Nice to see you. (Page 14)
FROM THE FLOOR: I don't know if you were here when I made an intervention with Anne Marie earlier, but I talked about the new brittleness and fortuity of power because of the environment you have written about and I have written about and other people here. But I'm building on that. I find it inconceivable — this is going to be an interregnum. I think there are areas, including in the authoritarian countries where they are trying to make sure it is only an interregnum. But I think it's going to be sustainable simply because of what Vivek said this morning, 0.0001 percent. I don't know if I've got the right number of decimal points, but we haven't seen anything yet. What you see at the moment is an inability of those in positions of power and responsibility to claw it back. I should actually perhaps read what the Lord Chief Justice in Britain said after the dot, dot, dot, Ryan Giggs, 75,000 people tweeted. He said, Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, modern technology is totally out of control. Those who peddle lies on the internet must be fined. I ask you to imagine how this is going to proliferate. So I think in answering it in the way he did from the establishment, if you like, and you're seeing that even in places like Britain, the way this kind of thing has just been kicked into touch. But look also at what happened with the British violence back in August when David Cameron decided when he came back from holiday rather belatedly, he said, well, we're thinking of introducing controls on Blackberry. Blackberry has now introduced their own controls, but that's another story. (Laughter)
FROM THE FLOOR: And also on Facebook to stop people organizing demonstrations. And two people were jailed for four years for trying to organize a protest which never actually took place. I say that because the backlash was enormous in Britain. Politically it was unsustainable even though the Chinese Government, actually through Shing Wah congratulated David Cameron on introducing these measures. (Laughter)
FROM THE FLOOR: Clay, we can laugh about this, but I think these are indications of why this cannot be an interregnum and, if you like, the power of the bottom up, the community at the base is going to make sure it won't be put back in its (Page 15).
MR. SHIRKY: Nik, I hope that you are right. And I will say Nik wrote a piece some years ago called Sky Full of Lies, which was analysis of essentially the change in the media environment from the point of views of exactly the kinds of decision makers Nik is talking about now. Cannot recommend it highly enough. I still assign it to my students as a discussion exercise. I hope that you were right. What I will say, I think, is that the threat is really the threat of national level control of the re-segmenting of the network at the joints. The Chinese are doing this. The Iranians have proposed a national internet, etcetera, etcetera. But it may be that technology is perfected in an autocratic context. Start getting adopted by, e.g., the U.K. and Australian proposals for network level filtering. I hope very much that you are right. I spend a lot of time looking at the ways that the unleashed potential of group action is altering the relationship between citizens and the state. But I can't go all the way to no fear, in part because I think that when the democracies of the world are signing up to force their own citizens to identify themselves in public forums in ways that the state can see. That is closer to what Cameron imagined for himself in the U.K. than I think people in the West have cottoned to. And it's an actual lived reality in South Korea now. So I think you and I are in agreement that it would be good if political speech thrived in a post national environment, but I'm — I'm generally an optimist, but in this case I can't go all the way. I can't go all the way.
FROM THE FLOOR: Hi. Thank you. My name is Alex Remington. I'm a first year Master's in Public Policy candidate at the Kennedy School and a research assistant here at Shorenstein. I'm very interested in the dimensions of this, this post national online environment. One thing that you had said is sometimes other things trump geography, but while national borders appear to be eroding, the same may not be entirely as true for national identity. It is still the case, I believe, that most French authors are still in France and most people reading South African news in an English newspaper are South African. (Page 16) This Westphalian nationalism hasn't - or the erosion of it - hasn't cured the problem of babble. We are all interested in what we speak, where we live, who we are, who we know. So while The New York Times successfully ignored the British Official Secrets Act for many, many years, that didn't create this WikiLeaks controversy that you have identified. Ultimately the hope of free speech is that we will find out things we wouldn't have otherwise learned. But if the only people who care are already in our country then that does make them subject to some of the laws that are otherwise challenged. So I wonder if you could talk, what's truly different now?
MR. SHIRKY: You know, I would say that — first of all, I think the basic analysis is absolutely right. That even without the national border as the zone of sharply reduced information flow as an edge there is still a censoring of particularly linguistic groups. I would say two things have happened that are different. One, if you wanted, particularly after the Judy Miller case in which the government was observably able to exert enough force to get what it wanted out of Miller and The Times, even though it was in the form of the source coming forward, if I wanted to lead something and I didn't want the U.S. to know the lesson I would take from the Judy Miller case is don't go to the U.S. press. Don't go to anybody reachable by the U.S. Government. Now, the choice used to be that if I leaked it to a foreign paper it would not be read by local citizens. Now The Guardian's readership, to take just one example, is larger in the United States than it is in the U.K. So the question I'm asking myself is for anyone leaking anything why would they ever leak it to a media outlet in their own country. Because this redirect does, as you say, put both the producer and consumer of information in the same country but moves the unveiling of the publicness of it outside the frame of national control. The other thing that is happening, a little more speculatively, I was struck last night when Alex said these proceedings are being translated into three other languages. That one of the things that makes nation states edges, zones of sharply reduced information flow is that you speak French and I speak German. But between low cost crowd sourcing and surprisingly good algorithmic translation the ability of information of to move in and out of a country without respect to the language of origin is higher (Page 17) than it has ever been in human history. We have not, I think, seen many cases with the possible exception of some reporting from Tahrir Square and Sidi Bouzid in Tunis, not seeing many cases where that translation has had direct practical effects, but I think that day is coming. And that will be another erosion of this national edge case.
FROM THE FLOOR: Andrew Robertson, former Shorenstein Fellow. As a historian I want to commend you for using a 17th Century case study. (Laughter) But I also want to suggest that the result may be more complicated. So I'll introduce an 18th Century case study. The case of another instance where I think information transcended national boundaries and that is after the French Revolution in the Atlantic world. You really think about the response by the British and the American governments, which were almost identical. That is the British introduced the Sedition Act in 1795 and the Americans followed with a language that was almost word for word identical in 1799. Now, it seems to me that what we see as a result is almost the immediate repeal on the American side, but the very long duration of the Sedition Act on the British side. And I suggest to you that we may see a very similar phenomenon in the future. And it may not be all one or all the other, that we may see repression continue in some of the countries that you have described and we may see a more jealous regard for liberty in some of the others.
MR. SHIRKY: I think that that is absolutely right. What worries me now is that the countries that we are used to seeing sign up for the jealous regard of liberty seem not to be doing it as much to my eye, in part because of the novelty of the threat, in part because of the post national nature of the threat. And in part because the people usually goading them in that direction, the collection of organizations we have come to call traditional media, are not as eager to sign up to protect citizens acting as publishers or new competitive threats in the commercial landscape or foreign publishers, almost on the grounds that their traditional role is being undermined. And that is, I think, probably the right answer commercially and almost certainly the wrong answer (Page 18) politically. And that is one of the log jams I'm concerned about.
FROM THE FLOOR: Hi. I'm Andy Glass. I'm a former Fellow here. This was a brilliant lecture to a concerned audience and I thank you for it. My question is if we had a referendum or constitutional convention today, certain aspects of the Bill of Rights, beginning with the First Amendment, what do you think the American people would do? Would they reaffirm the First Amendment or would they say too much, we've gone too far, let's do it again.
MR. SHIRKY: I think that the number of times that the language of the First Amendment has been taken out and given to people as a petition to have them not only not sign it, but to accuse the people circulating the petition of potentially having seditious attitudes towards the United States will give us the answer to that question. One of the enormous, enormous tensions around this kind of liberty, and it was alluded to by Nik Gowing earlier, which is that there are times when signing up for long term freedom means tolerating certain classes of short term harm. And it is very, very difficult, particularly in a mood in the country as dark as now to get that to happen. I don't have much hope that in — that one could completely re-adjudicate free speech as a de novo concept in this country or in some of the world's stable democracies and get the same result. But what I do see is the country's entering into that possibility, particularly reading the things that Tunisians are saying about the design of their constitution. It is in a way one of the things whose importance you forget once it becomes part of the background of your life. And I'm afraid that that's where we are in the U.S. So I don't think that were we to undertake a direct referendum of these issues that it would be the way to advance this idea. But I also don't think we need to. I think in a way what we need is for the traditional defenders of free speech in the United States Government and traditional media to sign up for those roles again, even against the short term disorientation of the current environment.
MR. JONES: Last question.
FROM THE FLOOR: George Moker, independent scholar. Earlier today some people were talking about media as asymmetric warfare, now with the internet. And you are talking about post global. I look at this and I follow John Robb and Martin Van Creveld, who talk about fourth generation warfare, asymmetric warfare, global guerillas, highly empowered small groups of people who are able to create the kind of actions that formerly nation states were able to do so. That's a further level of fragmentation which I would like you to address, if you can.
MR. SHIRKY: It's interesting. I think — Anne Marie is gone, but one of the things that we have spent a lot of time talking about is the way in which, for people who think about foreign relations the phrase non-state actor is like the phrase horseless carriage. It principally defines the future in terms of how it differs from the familiar past and assumes that a new class of actors can be described with reference to the thing that they are not like that we are really familiar with. I think that the rise of non-state actors, John Robb in particular, that line of thought focuses on non-state actors in explicitly conflict oriented situations. But when you look at things like the campaign to ban land mines, which came out of nowhere, and generated a consensus among the world's governments in a nothing flat relative to previous attempts to change people's minds. Or when you look at the transnational nature of protest movements now, there are fliers in lower Manhattan explicitly referencing Tahrir Square as a rationale for occupying Wall Street. And whatever you can say about the coherence of those parallels, the awareness of non-state action as a just lived capability is, I think, one of the big forces shaping it. When I look at the media environment, as you know from the class Alex invited me here to teach last year, when I look at the media environment and the effect on non-state action I break it down into three elements. The synchronization of opinion, the coordination of action and the documentation of results.
And when you look at things like the Egyptian situation in the lead up to the Arab Spring you see bloggers talking to each other over a course of years just to synchronize their opinions about Mubarak. Then you see uses of the tools to coordinate action, the ability of these citizens to say in advance, we're hijacking national police. They were telling you now that in the future there will be a protest in Tahrir Square. Not only do we not need permission from the state media to arrange that protest, they (Page 20) can't stop us from telling you. And then of course the thing I underestimated that has turned out to be enormously important is documentation of the results. Here we are in the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain and I am giving you video evidence the government is using live fire against its own citizens. While the global guerilla analysis takes a slice of that, I think that the general pattern of increasingly coordinated non-state action is going to be a big part of this post national matrix, whatever you want to call it.
MR. JONES: Clay, thank you so much.
MR. SHIRKY: Thank you. Thank you, very much. (Applause)
Transcript: 20 Advance Services Franklin, Massachusetts (508) 520-2076; Download; the orginal page numbers have been preserved for the sake of referencing the document
"The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard University research center dedicated to exploring and illuminating the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice."
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Practice Should Make Perfect – Eventually
Well I know one thing… It's been ages since I posted here so I should at least explain what I've been up to.
In some ways, not a lot although in other ways, quite a lot. I've been appearing more on social websites, mostly Facebook and Twitter, offering assistance and pearls of wisdom to those who want to see it. This has got me a lot more friends and followers on both and so is increasing my brand and web presence, to the point now where I'm being asked to join product creation groups and accountability partnerships. The former – well I've tried a couple and although the initial interest was there from the others, things and stuff got in their way and it all came to naught. The latter needs a bit more success to demonstrate on my part to make sure of what I'm telling someone really is worth telling.
My income has been climbing. It's slow but I can see an improvement and it seems to coincide with financial or hard work on my part – so finding the right things to do is getting results, then it's just a matter of doing more of the same.
One thing I have found that is fun and easy (mostly) is via a system called Affiliate Tube Jacker. It explains a very simple way of ranking a video on Google via YouTube in a matter of a few minutes, then, assuming it ranks high enough, actually creating the video via another simple method.
One thing I have learned from this is that I need to work on my presentation skills. I am full of 'erm, err', mis-pronunciations and stuttering over my words. However, I know this will improve with practice, something that I can do offline as well as online.
Here's an example of my early work. Things (as they say), can only get better…
In case you're interested – $2k Pay Days is well worth investigating and better without my commentary! At the time of writing though, the video was in top place on Google for 2k Pay Days and 2k Pay Days Review as seen here:
I got the video to that position in only 13 minutes too! As you can see though, there is no competition for the keyword and finding that sort of product is part of the secret. For the rest, you'll have to look at Affiliate Tube Jacker for yourself. I can't give it all away (grin).
So although my earnings won't set the world alight just yet, I can confidently say that taking action does bring results, which brings me round to the question…
Are YOU taking action too? If you are, tell me in the comments box below, what you're doing and how it's doing for you.
If you're not taking action, why not? Are you stuck on something? Don't be afraid to ask for help as getting over that little hurdle may well lead you on to bigger and better things.
As always, please feel free to share this article socially by using the buttons below and if you want to stay in regular contact with me, join my list at http://www.mmss.site/free You get a free ebook of Online Passive Income Ideas to help you get started and there's always more advice and free give-aways sent out with my emails, which, by the way, are not all sales and hype.
Let's hope it's not too long before my next update on here as I'm sure there'll be more to tell you about soon.And perhaps better voice overs too!


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eG Cook-Off #81: The Avocado - Finding new popularity in the kitchen
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By liuzhou
Perhaps the food-related question I get asked most through my blog is "What's it like for vegetarians and vegans in China. The same question came up recently on another thread, so I put this together. Hope it's useful. It would also, be great to hear other people's experience and solutions.
For the sake of typing convenience I'm going to conflate 'vegetarians and vegan' into just 'vegetarian' except where strictly relevant.
First a declaration of non-interest. I am very carnivorous, but I have known vegetarians who have passed through China, some staying only a few weeks, others staying for years.
Being vegetarian in China is a complicated issue. In some ways, China is probably one of the best countries in which to be vegetarian. In other ways, it is one of the worst.
I spent a couple of years in Gorbachev-era Russia and saw the empty supermarkets and markets. I saw people line up for hours to buy a bit of bread.. So, when I first came to China, I kind of expected the same. Instead, the first market I visited astounded me. The place was piled high with food, including around 30 different types of tofu, countless varieties of steamed buns and flat breads and scores of different vegetables, both fresh and preserved, most of which I didn't recognise. And so cheap I could hardly convert into any western currency.
If you are able to self-cater then China is heaven for vegetarians. For short term visitors dependent on restaurants or street food, the story is very different.
Despite the perception of a Buddhist tradition (not that strong, actually), very few Chinese are vegetarian and many just do not understand the concept. Explaining in a restaurant that you don't eat meat is no guarantee that you won't be served meat.
Meat is seen in China as a status symbol. If you are rich, you eat more meat.And everyone knows all foreigners are rich, so of course they eat meat! Meat eating is very much on the rise as China gets more rich - even to the extent of worrying many economists, food scientists etc. who fear the demand is pushing up prices and is environmentally dangerous. But that's another issue. Obesity is also more and more of a problem.
Banquet meals as served in large hotels and banquet dedicated restaurants will typically have a lot more meat dishes than a smaller family restaurant. Also the amount of meat in any dish will be greater in the banquet style places.
Traditional Chinese cooking is/was very vegetable orientated. I still see my neighbours come home from the market with their catch of greenery every morning. However, whereas meat wasn't the central component of dinner, it was used almost as a condiment or seasoning. Your stir fried tofu dish may come with a scattering of ground pork on top, for example. This will not usually be mentioned on the menu.
Simple stir fried vegetables are often cooked in lard (pig fat) to 'improve' the flavour.
Another problem is that the Chinese word for meat (肉), when used on its own refers to pork. Other meats are specified, eg (beef) is 牛肉, literally cattle meat. What this means is that when you say you don't eat meat, they often think you mean you don't eat pork (something they do understand from the Chinese Muslim community), so they rush off to the kitchen and cook you up some stir fried chicken! I've actually heard a waitress saying to someone that chicken isn't meat. Also, few Chinese wait staff or cooks seem to know that ham is pig meat. I have also had a waitress argue ferociously with me that the unasked for ham in a dish of egg fried rice wasn't meat.
Also, Chinese restaurant dishes are often given have really flowery, poetic names which tell you nothing of the contents. Chinese speakers have to ask. One dish on my local restaurant menu reads "Maternal Grandmother's Fluttering Fragrance." It is, of course, spicy pork ribs!
Away from the tourist places, where you probably don't want to be eating anyway, very few restaurants will have translations of any sort. Even the best places' translations will be indecipherable. I have been in restaurants where they have supplied an "English menu", but if I didn't know Chinese would have been unable to order anything. It was gibberish.
To go back to Buddhism and Taoism, it is a mistake to assume that genuine followers of either (or more usually a mix of the two) are necessarily vegetarian. Many Chinese Buddhists are not. In fact, the Dalai Lama states in his autobiography that he is not vegetarian. It would be very difficult to survive in Tibet on a vegetarian diet.
There are vegetarian restaurants in many places (although the ones around where I am never seem to last more than six months). In the larger cities such as Beijing and Shanghai they are more easily findable.
Curiously, many of these restaurants make a point of emulating meat dishes. The menu reads like any meat using restaurant, but the "meat" is made from vegetable substitutes (often wheat gluten or konjac based).
To be continued
By Darienne
Chile Rellenos. Every Mexican or Mexican type restaurant we've ever been in almost, I've chosen Chile Rellenos. I keep thinking I'll pick something different...and then I don't. I've made them. Once. So much trouble. And deep fat frying. And of course in the Far Frozen North where we live, we've been able to get Poblanos (that's it) for only about five years now.
Imagine my delight, the appeal to my very lazy side, to discover the following recipe just a few days ago: https://www.homesicktexan.com/2018/09/chile-relleno-casserole-el-paso-style.html . And yesterday I made them and served them to guests with Mexican rice and black beans. Died and gone to heaven.
OK. Truth time. I used Poblanos and I did not roast them to remove the skins. In an electric oven, it's not a nice job. And besides the skins have never bothered me or Ed at all. But I did roast the Poblanos in the oven. And then I used commercial salsa because we had one we liked. (Did I say that I can be lazy sometimes?) And I used Pepper Jack cheese. Jack cheese is not always available in the small Ontario city we live outside of and pepper jack is even less common. Buy it when you see it. I defrosted some frozen guacamole I had in the freezer. But by heavens the casserole was delicious and now it's on our menu permanently.
So shoot me. But I thought I'd share my joy anyway.
By jackie40503
I lived in Phoenix AZ a total of 24 years and during that time I found what the local restaurants call a Green Chili Burro. I have also lived and worked in 48 states and the only ones who have them is either in Arizona, Western New Mexico or Southern California. I am now retired in Northwest Washington State. I have searched the internet for recipes and have found that none of them taste the same. I have also written to many Mexican restaurants and either did not receive a reply or was told that they could not give out the recipe. I am now going around to blogs/forums dealing with Mexican foods hoping that someone would have the actual recipe from one of the restaurants. Its not like I am going trying to compete with them since I live along way from those areas and only wish to serve it in my own household.
By Deeps
This is one of my daughter favorite dishes, being mild and less spicy she loves this rice dish. Its super easy to make and goes well with most Indian curries.
Do try this out and I am sure you will be happy with the results.
Prep Time : 5 mins
Cook Time: 5 mins
Serves: 2
1 cup rice(basmati), cooked
1/2 cup coconut, shredded or grated
1 green chili, slit
1 dried red chili
1 1/2 tablespoon oil/ghee(clarified butter)
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 tablespoon chana dal(split chickpeas)
1/2 tablespoon urad dal(split black gram)
1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped
A pinch of hing (asafoetida)
Few curry leaves
Salt to taste
1) Heat oil/ghee(clarified butter) in a pan in medium flame. I used coconut oil here because it tastes best for this dish.
2) Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, chana dal(split chickpeas), urad dal(split black gram), green chili, dried red chili, ginger and curry leaves. Fry this for 30 seconds in medium flame. The trick is to ensure that these are fried but not burned.
3) Add a pinch of hing(asafoetida) and mix well.
4) Now add the cooked rice and coconut. Stir well for about 15 to 20 seconds and switch off the flame.
5) Finally add salt into this and mix well. You could add peanuts or cashew nuts if you prefer. Goes well with most curries.
By ProfessionalHobbit
I had completely forgotten about our dinner there in December.
Anyone who is a serious eater here on eGullet needs to come here soon. Highly recommended. @MetsFan5 - here is one place you might love over Gary Danko. You too @rancho_gordo.
I'll let the pix speak for themselves...
Horchata - Koshihikari rice, almonds, black cardamom, cinnamon.
Scallop chicharrón, scallop ceviche, crème fraîche.
Jicama empanada, shiso, pumpkin, salmon roe.
Smoked mushroom taco with pickled wild mushrooms.
Dungeness crab tostada, sour orange segments, sour orange-habanero salsa, Castelfranco radicchio, tarragon.
Pineapple guava sorbet
Fuyu persimmon, habanero honey, tarragon
Tasmanian trout ceviche, dashi, Granny Smith apple
Aguachile, parsnip, red bell pepper
Black bean tamales steamed in banana leaves, with salsa on the side
Smoked squab broth, pomegranate seeds, cilantro flowers
Tres frijoles with sturgeon caviar, shallots and edible gold leaf
Black cod, salsa verde, green grapes
Wagyu beef, pickled onion
Smoked squab breast served with spiced cranberry sauce, quince simmered in cranberry juice, pickled Japanese turnips and charred scallion, and sourdough flour tortillas
Yes, it's the same squab from which the broth was made.
And now the desserts:
Foie gras churro, with foie gras mousse, cinnamon sugar, served with hot milk chocolate infused with cinnamon, Lustau sherry and coffee.
By the time I remembered to take a pic, I'd eaten half of the churro. Dunk the churro into the chocolate.
Dulce de leche spooned atop pear sorbet with chunks of Asian pear, macadamia nut butter
Pecan ice cream, candied pecans, shortbread cookie, apples, clarified butter
The cookie was on top of the apples. Break the cookie and spoon everything over.
Cherry extract digestif, vermouth, sweet Mexican lime
We'll definitely return. I'm an instant fan.
Prepaid tix were $230 per person, plus there were additional charges due to wine pairings. It's worth every cent you'll spend.
3115 22nd Street (South Van Ness)
Mission District
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13456 17 Avenue, Surrey Listing #: R2348617
Open House: Monday 1st July: 1:00-3:00pm
EXQUISITE dream residence built to the highest standards; superior quality and interior design. Soaring Ceilings, Rich Hardwood Floors, Extensive Millwork throughout, and Designer influences complete this 6,100sqft 5 bedroom, 6 bathroom home. A dramatic grand foyer sets the tone of sophistication and flows into a delightful Great Room. A timeless DREAM KITCHEN complete with stone counters, MIELE & WOLF/SUBZERO appliances and an additional WOK Kitchen. Convenient formal dining with separate butler's pantry ideal for family gatherings. Divine Master Suite dressed to the nines with a Marble Ensuite and private dressing room.The Lower Level is an entertainer's delight; rich wooden paneling, wetbar & wine cellar, gym and sauna! Endless features and truly a MUST SEE HOME!
Taxes (2017): $9,281.38
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Listed By: Bay Realty
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