Tea Time with Torpey

Today I am formally announcing my candidacy for South Orange Village President

2011-03-02T11:22:00.002-05:00

To read the announcement and watch the announcement video please head on over to my campaign site at: http://alextorpey.com/announcement. I will updating my blog from there for the next two months, I hope you'll check it out and connect with the campaign!

What Community Truly Means To Me

2011-01-29T09:32:00.001-05:00

Sitting in Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel last week on Martin Luther King Day reminded me why I am so proud to call this area my hometown. A celebration of Dr. King’s legacy — primarily organized by the Community Coalition on Race — the event was about as quintessential Maplewood-South Orange as it gets.

The event included not only a performance by Columbia High School students, but uplifting talks by local religious leaders from a diversity of faiths who approached reflecting on Dr. King’s message and legacy by helping us gain perspective by lending us their own.

There are not many places in the country — really in the world —where a minister, an Imam, a reverend and cantor could all gather in such an absolutely positive environment. No tensions, no judgments and no negativity. I’m not sure about everyone else, but these days, that environment is an oasis of understanding and positivity compared to the relative divergence that exists in media, government and culture in our state, our country and frequently around the world.

And we are among the luckiest because we actually live in a community where not only this happens, but where it is encouraged and valued. Going to colleges in other states and meeting people from across the country both in undergraduate and graduate school reminds me that not everywhere is like our area. And when people from other places hear two CHS (Columbia High School) alum talking about how we grew up in these two towns, for example, they are immediately captivated by the stories we tell, want to know more, and often, even want to visit and see for themselves what these towns are all about.

Friends of mine who have visited often head back to their hometown filled with thoughts of picturesque gaslights, open space and parks, downtowns that should be in movies, and often are, and a community that is genuinely diverse, creative and passionate.

Now, finding a place to move to without breaking the bank is another challenge perhaps only matched by the challenge of figuring out a way to ensure that people who grow up here can afford to continue to live here, but clearly we have a rising demand as more people realize how unique our community is.

And perhaps I am just feeling reflective because it is a new year, or maybe it’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and talking about our towns lately, but it seems reasonable to try and take a moment to step back and place our experiences here and now within a greater geographical and historical context.

Anyone who is reading this has probably at this point realized I am, well, a bit of a nerd about government.

And one of my favorite case-studies is the constitutional convention — an event where people from grossly different walks of life came together for a common goal, and even through disagreement and differing ideology of literally the most fundamental nature, were able to compromise and create arguably one of the best governing documents ever written. A powerful lesson indeed.

The idea that regardless of peoples’ differences - no matter how superficial or deep they may be at any given time - unity around something we all care about is the most powerful force of all.

Throughout political times that seem to favor divergence instead of convergence, remembering this theme seems of even greater importance than ever. And these towns, more specifically, the people who live, and work and go to school in these towns, should be an example for other communities.

Until then, I hope this week’s column can at least serve as a little thank you to people who make events like last weeks’ celebration and reflection happen. And again, in a national culture that seems to favor rabble rousing over civility and progress, it is inspiring to be reminded that my roots are in a place that is above the fray and sets an example of what community actually means.

Government Innovation: Pursuit of Happiness (Part 3 of 3)

2010-12-09T11:40:00.000-05:00

When people talk about government innovation the discussion tends to revolve around new projects, new buildings and new technologies that the public sector either should be creating or should be directly investing in.

But one of the most potentially breakthrough innovations that our government could do to be a Gov 2.0 leader in arts and culture doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t expand the government at all.

Copyright laws, often thought of as laws meant to protect those who invest time and money into creating something new or unique from others financially gaining off of their contribution for free, were actually created under more utilitarian principles, not personal or commercial interests.

The ‘Copyright Clause,’ Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution empowers Congress: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

An idea like this would probably be called socialist by mainstream media or an equally superficial source today. However, between James Madison and Charles Pinckney, the idea of allowing the government to grant someone temporary ownership of, at the time, mostly literary creations, was born on August 18th 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, and solidified when the Constitution was written.

But the goal wasn’t necessarily protecting private financial gain, but rather a larger societal advancement of ideas and innovation, and the constitutional framers recognized that providing some protection was necessary towards that end.

In this spirit, I think it’s necessary to re-evaluate what exactly copyright laws are doing, and to make sure they are accomplishing what the people who created the law intended them to. Let me ask you this: Could you see James Madison cheering the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on when they sued a 12 year-old girl who lived in subsidized government housing with her single mother for damages up to $150,000 per song that she downloaded over a service she paid for and thought was legal? Doubt it.

Although the RIAA, or sister organization for the movie industry, the MPAA, claims these lawsuits aren’t about money, does anyone actually believe them? They are upset because they haven’t been able to keep up with changing technology and consumer landscapes and have lost business to a totally economic market-generated solution, which is online file sharing and DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) music and video downloading. Yet, so far they have been fairly successful in using the government to promote their own financial interests.

However, if the government wants to spur innovation or the progression of culture and the arts, they could start by standing up to these special interests and creating a legal landscape where kids aren’t afraid to use their favorite song in a spontaneous YouTube video or school project.

Relatedly, one of the interesting ideas floated out recently in the spirit of helping leverage the public sector to advance culture and arts is creating a cabinet-level position of “Secretary of the Arts.” Qunicy Jones, all around music/arts mogul and winner of 27 Grammys (79 nominations) said, “My passion in life now, and one of the first conversations I’ll have with President Obama, is to beg for a Secretary of the Arts.”

When looking at public sector innovation, people tend to imagine a great behemoth of a federal program slowly eating up tax dollars while providing either very little or very specific benefit to certain people. But it doesn’t necessarily have to happen that way.

Perhaps just having a public advocate for the arts, which we are seeing getting cut left and right from public school, even though studies routinely show the enormous benefit of music and arts education, might be enough to spark larger change.

I’ll leave you with a story from a professor from George Mason University, that my father mentioned to me recently: In the 1700s as England was shipping off inmates to Australia, routinely 1/3 of the passengers died and the majority of surviving passengers were sick or badly beaten and injured.

They tried everything, except talking to an economist. And when they finally did, the economist suggest one simple tiny change: Instead of paying shipping companies for number of passengers they took on the ship they should instead pay based on how many got off the ship. The next voyage had a 99% survival rate.

Sometimes it just takes a small carefully thought-out change to provide the impetus for a groundbreaking innovation.

Government Innovation: Liberty (Part 2 of 3)

2010-10-29T10:55:00.002-04:00

“There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.”

To ensure the liberty of our people, and indeed all people, we have created a democratically elected government split into three branches each which balances the others, created publicly funded education, infrastructure, information, public safety and military resources and reshaped our public policies —albeit often slowly — as people realized we could do better.

Our ability to progressively re-evaluate current practices is based on the assumption that people have access to all of the information available and are best able to use that information to move forward a new idea.

But, throughout the past few decades, our values have shifted. Creativity has become bogged down by drudgery, thoughtfulness by superficiality and education by bureaucracy. The most interesting classes are getting cut from curricula, national debate is shaped by sound-bites not real discussion and our process of educating young people, so that they can overcome these challenges, has slowly been re-focused. Our attention is no longer on what knowledge and values we are imparting or what people need to learn to be successful in our times but rather on how we can most efficiently measure what we are doing. But there is hope, and it has a lot to do with leveraging new technology.

Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, as many of us know it, is an organization that fosters global innovation through the inspiration of, aggregation and mass free distribution of some of the most brilliant talks on pressing issues that exists on this planet. All of TED’s content is made available online for free and has been translated into more than 50 languages by a corps of volunteers.

The lesson: Education doesn’t always need to take place in a classroom or by a textbook. Sometimes a media platform delivers information better than a book can, and if it can reach people a classroom textbook otherwise wouldn’t, so much the better.

Does this mean all schools should take place online? Certainly not. But does it mean that through public schools the government should invest in ways to inspire, education and connect people using the internet, much like many colleges have been doing for years? Absolutely.

Public schools should be our most connected institutions, using online media, social networking, online games that foster curiosity and real-time audio/visual communication to connect students with all of the resources the world has to offer. Schools don’t need to offer every single class in every single subject. Just by having a well-connected accessible library or study space, schools could connect all of their students to nearly infinite outside resources. Yet many schools still operate under primitive IT policies that often prohibit students from accessing the most valuable online platforms, and few go as far as to actually encourage them.

In another field that is one of the most productive to invest in, we see libraries across the country getting their funding cut, even as patron usage steadily increases.
Even in South Orange, where the library has taken many proactive financial steps already, it voluntarily eliminated a full-time staff position worth $62,000, and is forced to cut another $25,000 out of the budget between 2009 and 2010.

People need these knowledge centers where they can perform research, connect with other people and be linked to the rest of the world, especially if they cannot afford home broadband access.

Guaranteeing both that all people have equal access to information and know they have such access is one of the best safeguards against tyranny, ignorance, polarization and hatred, all things that I know I am not alone in seeing more and more of in national debate these days. A truly excellent education will allow people the chance to rise above this.

Education is our assurance that when, for example, looking at racially-biased drug laws, the complex implications of immigration policies or military strategies that will influence decades of international relations, that we can approach these issues in educated, nuanced and thoughtful ways with the shared values of progress, community betterment and rationality. That is what the founding fathers meant by liberty and that is what we must work towards. And the first step is education.

Government Innovation: Life (Part 1 of 3)

2010-10-26T10:48:00.002-04:00

Life. I’m not talking about Oprah’s version of the BBC and David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. I’m talking about what is perhaps the most fundamental of rights granted to any person by positive law, natural law, social contract or any other system we could use to quantify rules and rights.

Our right to live is the cornerstone of ensuring a prosperous and sustainable society. Animal hierarchies decide and categorize social interactions to lessen violence and death and our laws seek to do the same. Life, however, has not always been a given right in human civilization and has not even extended to all people for the entire history of this country. People from various political persuasions would argue that today, in the United States, our right to live is threatened by either the death penalty, poor healthcare, violence terrorism and war, abortion, poverty, poor nutrition and the list goes on.

And we expect our government, even the most libertarian among us, to protect our lives. We generally expect police/fire/emergency management services, a military and the most basic regulations to ensure that we don’t die as easily as some wouldn’t mind us to.

Personally, I would consider that protection of life extending to healthcare, including diet and nutrition, certain consumer regulations, like seat belts and pharmaceutical regulation, and the ability for us to live in a society where violence and death are not accepted forms of social dynamics.

So, we have arguably the most powerful military in the world. We have over one million police officers employed throughout the country. We have an unbelievably responsive 9-1-1 system that sends emergency personnel to your doorstep in minutes in most of the country - without asking how much money you have or insurance information or whether you paid your taxes or even voted (Except in South Fulton, TN). Not bad.

But the biggest gap that is readily visible is the health of our country. This lack of attention being paid to health is causing epidemic obesity and diabetes rates, steadily climbing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, emerging strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria and exploding rates of conditions, from cardiac issues, strokes, cancer, and of course, traumatic injuries.

And we don’t even provide the infrastructure to encourage people towards preventative care and personal responsibility.

Some argue the market will handle this. However, the facts are simple: We spend more per-capita and get less than other developed countries because we are allowing the private sector to cash in on our lagging health by discouraging cost-saving preventative measures.

We are putting the onus on the emergency medical system to pick up this slack, which ends up being astronomically more expensive and time consuming than if we had approached these problems from a proactive perspective.

But by using technology, without even tackling the larger issues that are wrapped up in the all too ubiquitous mindless political posturing of our time, the government can take major steps towards improving this system and helping us improve our health and reduce the strain on our economy and healthcare system.

Allowing consumers total control over their healthcare information, as the VA is beginning to do with their ‘blue button,’ where people can download all of their medical history from the VA website, and then take that information, do with it what they will, is a great way to put a little control back in our hands.

Modernizing patient care by switching to electronic charting, where medical records are kept on computers, will prevent errors from being made, save medical staff time and will save us money. Electronic records are cheaper, easier, transportable, downloadable and secure. We need to re-imagine the government’s role in e-charting as a springboard for developers to create the innovations that we can use to modernize our healthcare system. Should we tell the government to create this system? Not necessarily. But should we tell our government to ensure that data is accessible so that 3rd parties can create new innovations? Absolutely.

Even by expanding broadband internet, public libraries and educational resources to more people, we can help ensure people have all of the information to make the right decisions. Of course wrapped up in a larger discussion of a failing education system that doesn't teach people how to (a) find information and (b) make their own decisions, the idea that people should be able to realize what is healthy is critical. By releasing government data for reconsumption and sharing, we can allow third party innovators create meaningful web-based informational resources on personal health, how to choose the best healthcare providers and more.

None of these issues will solve the problem. They are but the tip of the iceberg of apolitical technology-based solutions that save money, improve efficiency and make the government more transparent and accountable.

Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it best with an interview with NPR, "I think everyone, I would presume, is in favor of better informed consumers. Everyone's in favor of healthy Americans, everyone's in favor of more functional marketplaces. I mean it's not a political thing, it's an American thing."

Furthermore, healthcare is but one of a dozen fields that we can improve the government’s life-saving directive by using open technology. What are some ways you think government can better protect our lives using technology?

The Declaration of Independence as a Framework for Modern Government Innovation

2010-09-22T14:55:00.000-04:00

After spending the better part of the first week of September in Washington, DC for O’Reilly Media’s Gov 2.0 Summit, I am re-invigorated and re-energized as to the enormous potential that exists for innovation in the public sector, especially as it relates to using technology as a springboard for innovation.

Although the public sector is not always the first place one thinks of when considering innovation, especially with technology, it has always been there, directly or indirectly since the beginning. So many technologies — GPS or the internet itself even, have been offshoots of government projects, usually coming from the Department of Defense. And understandably so, what is more fundamental and important in government than protecting its own citizens from harm?

Now, however, new technology offers something so much more than advancement of military technology or public safety functions. Technology, if properly implemented, has nearly limitless potential for improving our quality of life, maximizing educational opportunities, improving the efficiency of government services, connecting people who otherwise could not have been connected and boldly offering the promise of actually ensuring what could reasonably be considered our most fundamental trifecta of basic rights: Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Perhaps one of the most well-known phrases in the English language, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a guarantee of one’s unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, is the perfect way to think about how important and profound the government’s role in technological innovation can be.

A theme of the Gov 2.0 Summit, and a generally interesting concept to consider, is rethinking how we get the public services that we increasingly demand. Traditionally, government is looked at as a vending machine of services —where we put money through tax dollars in and get services out. But we would be missing an opportunity if we didn’t at least attempt to re-conceptualize that relationship.

What if the government provided the ability and platforms to allow us - the citizens - to innovate and improve our quality of life? What if ‘public’ didn’t mean the government but if it actually meant the public: us?

Over three forthcoming posts, I will focus each one on how the government is, can be, and should be innovating in each of those sectors, taking care to ask how best we can accomplish guaranteeing each of those rights and what role the government should actually play in:

Life: This analysis will focus on the military, public safety, medicine and healthcare, emergency services and consumer regulations. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the live’s of our citizens and what role should the government play in doing so?

Liberty: This will focus on criminal justice, judicial equality, ensuring social equality and freedom and the ability for all to succeed to the degree to which they desire and work towards. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee liberty, justice and equality for all of our citizens?

Pursuit of Happiness: This will focus on providing the platforms for our continued engagement in the arts, culture, shared experiences and leisure. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the ability for all of our citizens to be part of activities and legacies which they most enjoy and which provide cultural value to our society?

Each of these fields is worth a volume of encyclopedias and I will barely do justice to each by limiting them, for now at least, to a singular article.

I do not claim that any of these analysis will answer all of these questions. In fact, I would prefer if they raised more questions than answered, as asking questions, and figuring out how to ask the right questions is, or at least should be, a precursor to progress and innovation, especially when it relates to blindingly fast moving technological innovation that can easily change fundamentals of our society without us even noticing.

Day Two of the Gov 2.0 Summit

2010-09-08T10:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Tim O'Reilly kicked of the Gov 2.0 summit by saying that we must end the era of the vending machine services government and move to an open collaborative platform.

And the lineup of speakers for the day reinforced that theme. From, Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation who spoke critically of the accuracy of some open government initiatives like usapspending.gov to Todd Park, a conference favorite, who spoke about reforms that were happening at the Department of Health and Human Services, one thing was clear: progress will come to government only through the engaged action of its citizen and through the inspired act of the people who work in government and can move forward policies that harnass the power of people.

The talks and presentations yesterday, which fell under the categories of "The Power of Platforms," "Fueling the Innovation Economy," and "Improving Government Effectiveness" certainly brought some of the brightest minds to the table to bring their ideas to the forefront on how to capture the knowledge of the crowd.

And with new health reforms like the blue button for VA care, collaborative national security and emergency response frameworks that were discussed by NSA Director General Keith Alexander and Donna Ray (The CIO's Executive for Information Sharing for the Department of Homeland Security), and other new government initiatives aimed at bettering this connection between citizens and governments, an innovative open government model seems more promising than ever
Today, I'm excited to see panels on, for example, using technology to better improve air traffic control, discussing the legal issues around social media use for government and talks on how the relationship between citizens and government is forever changing in fundamental ways due to technology advancement.
There is streaming video available here: http://en.oreilly.com/gov2010/public/content/livestream
And don't forget to get involved with the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #g2s.

Day One of the Gov 2.0 Summit

2010-09-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

First up at the Gov 2.0 Summit is O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly who just finished welcoming guets to the event. The clear theme of the conference is looking at government not "as a vending machine of services" but rather as a platform on which society can build upon. Using transportation as the first example, Tim O'Reilly set the stage for what should be a dynamic showcase of how the opening up of data can lead to true innovation across the public sector.

Currently, Carl Malamud is discussing the historical context to the importance of open data and the downfalls the government faces today by not being caught-up to what possibilites are available. Ensuring food safety and efficient government operations, for example in taxes, are two huge pieces to government operation that could benefit from better cooperation and communication among various agencies in a growing and incresingly fragmented and specialized federal government. He says "If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can open up the Library of Congress."

My day will be spent attending dozens of panels, workshops and lectures, recaps of which I will write up at the end of the day.

In the meantime, make sure to check out the Gov 2.0 Summit conversation on twitter using the hashtag #g2s and follow live updates of the event on my twitter at: www.twitter.com/alextorpey. Additionally, visit http://governingpeople.com/gov20summit for a list of all posts related to the event.

NJ Receives $40m for Public Safety Wireles

2010-08-19T11:11:00.001-04:00

Today, Congressional representatives announced a plan that will bring $40 million of federal funds to New Jersey - the country's most densely populated state - to improve public safety, emergency response and law enforcement communication networks.

The new system, which will be built off of existing networks as much as possible, will help 167 law enforcement agencies and 224 fire departments communicate with each other on a high-speed network. This will allow mapping data, records, reports, images and video to all be transmitted between agencies and operations workers faster and more reliably than before.

In my experience working in emergency medical services, many agencies, especially paramedic agencies, use e-charting to take down patient information, for example. However, outdated IT infrastructures that exists throughout the state usually makes it impossible for this information to actually be electronically transferred from an arriving ambulance to hospital staff. This new network hopes to update the infrastructure to provide smoother operations on all public safety fronts.

This network will also help get emergency personnel out faster, too. Reported on NorthJersey.com "[The network] will also assist with dispatching responders and mapping, Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, both D-N.J., said in a joint announcement."

The grant is part of a $1.47 billion stimulus grant for improvement of wireless/IT public safety infrastructure going to 65 other regions across the country.

How Important Are Our Values in Education?

2010-08-19T09:22:00.001-04:00

Watching Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s campaign director talk about their campaign strategies earlier this summer made me realize that something really profound was taking place in our country.

As he detailed all of the innovations their campaign used to try and convince people to vote for their candidate I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so difficult to get people out to vote, an activity that is most certainly in their own best interest. And then I took that question one step further - why is so much time, energy and money spent attempting to convince people to do things that are in their best interest?

Whether it is a get out the vote campaign, public service ads telling people to stop smoking or to eat healthier, government mandated programs that force people to save money (which the majority wouldn’t do otherwise) or any other host of initiatives aimed at bettering people’s lives - Why is this costly practice of convincing necessary? Why don’t people know they should vote, know they should eat healthy or know they should be responsible with their money?

In a rare, and hopefully not precedent-setting, occurrence I actually would like to answer the question I raise. And I believe that the answer, sadly, is that these values, though perhaps once of import to our culture, and certainly valued in some sub-cultures or other parts of the world, are just not part of our process of socialization anymore.

For some strange reason, being raised in this country doesn’t guarantee you will understand the stock market, marketing and financial decisions, how to choose a healthy diet, how to exercise your political rights much less global economic and political dynamics.

Schools incessantly pound facts into young people while imparting very few, if any, practical skills or critical thinking concepts, not in a dissimilar fashion to Ray Bradbury predictions in Fahrenheit 451. True, many kids can do math at a level that would have surely categorized them as a witch in the not too distant past, but have they the same ability to question the world around them or an understanding of the complex and serious issues that they will have to grapple with throughout their lives?

If anything, school curricula have become even narrower because of the monumental over-standardization that has taken place over the past decade. The focus of our public education seems to have shifted from helping educate and socialize our youngest to just measuring the ‘quality’ of schools as to determine next year’s federal funding.

The idea of socialization, whereby the eldest help teach the youngest how best to survive and develop in a given environment is an incredible process. Humans spend more time on this process than any other animal by far. Our youngest today spend often 18 years or more under supervision, far greater than even our mammal relatives like dogs who spend only a few months or dolphins, perhaps the closest, who spend 3-6 years. This enormous focus humans have had on raising offspring is one of the primary reasons we have such robust culture - an incredible amount of information is passed from generation to generation, even before written or recorded materials existed. And now that we have such accesible and global mediums to record and share information, we should be able to further improve upon this practice.

For the first time in human history, we have unprecedented opportunity (resources and incentive) to enter into an entirely new level of thought, discourse and freedom. Critical thinking combined with vast and easy access to information is a powerful tool of democracy, science and thought that we have yet to tap into fully.

Perhaps we would not need so many complicated laws around financial markets if people simply were too well educated about finances to be tricked into poor decisions. Or if we had a better understanding of our bodies and diets we would no longer need the government to intervene for us. And if we could better engage with public policy issues, we wouldn’t need voter registration drives or overly-complicated (and ineffective) election rules.

Instead of attempting to solve all of these problems by creating cumbersome government interventions after the problem has arisen, we should, as a culture, take a more proactive approach and re-shape our education and enculturalization processes to better prepare people to make these decisions themselves.

South Orange National Night Out

2010-08-05T17:57:00.002-04:00

So this is a few days late, but South Orange (and thousands of towns across the country) held their National Night out this past Tuesday.

South Orange's event had all of the public safety departments down at floods hill for some informal hanging out before the main feature - Shrek. Read more @ Patch here.

I was down there on behalf of South Orange's Community Emergency Response Team with Tom Giordano from Seton Hall. We got more than a dozen people who said they were interested in potentially working with CERT or in some related volunteer public safety capacity. Hopefully we can really turn South Orange's CERT program into an example of how municipalities across the state and country (who are facing tough budget problems now more than ever) can leverage the energy of their residents and volunteers into helping keep their communities safe. More to come on the progress of CERT in South Orange soon!

Photo Credit: Marcia Worth of South Orange Patch

The Importance of Debate

2010-08-05T10:59:00.001-04:00

Disagreeing with someone is not easy. Nor is it easy when someone disagrees with you. In fact, constructive disagreement could probably be classified as a serious skill, one that few of us truly possess.

However, in our most tense moments, where disagreement is prone to be least subtle is of course the time when that skill is most important.

Groups of people with varying perspectives, experiences and ideas are time after time found to be more effective at solving problems than groups of homogeneous experts, and that is the theme of what I want to briefly explore here.

The impetus for writing this probably has less to do with any recent events, such as the lack of a climate bill or similar national political boondoggles, but may actually be more so due to a recent West Wing marathon. But regardless of the reason, I feel inspired to share a remarkable document produced by a past president of my undergraduate alma mater, Hampshire College, called the Principles of Discourse:
1. That we value truth and the process of seeking truth as ends in themselves;
2. That we accept responsibility to articulate a position as close to the truth as one can make it, using to the best of one’s ability, available evidence and the rules of reason, logic and relevance;
3. That we listen openly, recognizing always that new information may alter one’s position;
4. That we welcome evaluation and accept, and even encourage, disagreement and criticism, even to the point of seeking out for ourselves that which will disprove our position;
5. That we refuse to reduce disagreement to personal attacks or attacks on groups or classes of individuals;
6. That we value civility, even in disagreement;
7. And, that we reject the premise that ends, no matter how worthy, can justify means which violate these principles.

Disagreement should not be feared. Nor should being questioned, or someone else’s doubt, skepticism or hesitation. Whether it is working out an issue in one’s personal life, discussing the merits and downfalls of local policies or debating the most prominent national and global issues, which are far too many to even begin to list here, there seems to be a growing culture of silofication - the idea that we are becoming increasingly isolated, largely due to the organization of various online mediums, from basically things we don’t like.

Maybe I’m wrong, in fact, I hope I am wrong. But it seems as though disagreement, even though prima facie accepted in our culture is just that, merely a superficial symbolic gesture. Disagreement is loosing ground as a fundamental piece to the culture that formed one of the most free democracies in the world.

Perhaps today there are more stakeholders who are more invested, and therefore have more to lose. But people seem to have picked a “side,” like Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative, pro-choice versus pro-life and now appear unwilling to reassess their position based on a fear of seeming weak.

I think the idea here is that something like the Principles of Discourse mentioned above can be a truly powerful encourager of constructive debate, disagreement and increased understanding, and from that, more thorough, long-term and nuanced problem-solving.

Some online platforms provide the opportunity to create environments where these discussions are encouraged, but they are not the answer, merely a tool. The answer is a change in education and culture.

When delegates from up and down the coast met in Philadelphia in 1787, they represented an incredibly broad range of values and opinions and were still even in a fairly revolutionary mood. Yet, throughout that summer, those delegates crafted arguably one of the most democratic foundations to government ever seen on this planet.

And they did it without any technology, tools or modern conveniences. But what they had, which often seems to be lacking in 2010, is a common purpose. And although we may have disagreements, the de facto trust that we are all working towards a better future in a genuine way has been lost.

So I leave you with not an answer but a question: If we want to move forward, on whatever level, with comprehensive solutions to our most pressing problems, how do we restore the trust and culture needed to have constructive and nuanced discussions?

Implications of the Organization of Data

2010-07-30T10:55:00.000-04:00

It’s no surprise that the amount of data and information that exists - much less is becoming increasingly available - is monumental. In 2010, the internet will be about 1.2 zettabytes in size. Haven’t heard of zettabytes? A zettabyte is one trillion gigabytes. So right now, there is about 1.2 trillion gigabytes, or to help conceptualize that: about 2.6 million trillion mp3s. That’s a lot of information. And the number is rising - fast. In 2008, there were 281 billion gigabytes, and our 2010 number is on track to increase 44-times by 2020.

One of the implications of such an exponentially large increase in the amount of information available is the way in which that information is organized, categorized, consumed and shared by people.
Google was one of the earliest to cash in on this question and amazingly derives over 99% of its $24 billion annual revenue just for displaying text ads next to its search results. But not only is there a serious commercial interest in figuring out the best way to categorize data, there are many cultural, governmental, economic and political reasons as well.

For example, resulting from the fact that people are increasingly using the internet to find information on any and all questions that arise on a daily basis, the CDC even started using the geo-location data for flu sympton-related searches in Google to track the spread of the flu because that data was far more accurate than all of the other indicators that were previously available.

But when most people use an entity like Google to search for information - about 120 million searches are performed per hour - there becomes an issue of siloing - or the hyper-personalized categorization and isolation of information. The way that Google organizes its information is a tightly kept secret, and even if it were public, it would be so complicated most people could not make heads or tails of it. However, the ranking of websites appearing in search results plays an enormous role in the actual information we end up finding. That should seem obvious - that the way information is organized influences what information we find - but encyclopedia’s were a very different story.

Humans performed the algorithms to determine where to find the information, and then we would go take the book off of the shelf that seemed the best fit. Our process of finding that information in almost no way at all had an affect on how that information would be organized in future searches. However, when looking for information online, the way in which that information is displayed to us is largely hidden from view and is constantly evolving and changing.

Social-networking sites like Facebook provide an even more potentially compartmentalized experience because we are only seeing information from people that we like enough to be friends on facebook with and aren’t annoyed with enough to hide their updates from our view. Because we are being bombarded with so information constantly throughout our work, social, recreational and even downtimes, we quickly make decisions (like hiding a feed, voting up a link, favoriting an item) that actually significantly impact how future information will be displayed to us. Even just visiting a website found from a Google search influences how future rankings will be organized for your personally. But are we thinking about that when trying to find that last-minute statistic for an imminently due paper or report? Certainly not.

These unintended consequences, a theme of my writing and thought in the past, is ever-present and of course under-thought about in the realm of information gathering. Google may be an almost invaluable resources (imagine explaining to someone 50 years ago how easy it would be to instantly, even from our mobile phones, be able to find almost any information on anything) but we need to consider the ways that our use of these resources will affect the organization of information and thereby our thinking, our culture, our government and our lives.

This post originally appeared on Social Media Today: http://socialmediatoday.com/alextorpey/147793/implications-organization-data

Personal Responsibility & Law

2010-06-29T16:36:00.001-04:00

I wish I had more to say on the subject on how the erosion of personal responsibility in our legal and judicial system will impact our culture in the near and long-terms, but alas what I can at least do at this point is provide the link to a really interesting TED talk by author and lawyer Phillip K. Howard. Hopefully I can do some more legal research and thinking on the matter and I will definitely get back with a more comprehensive follow-up. But for now watch the video and let me know what you think below!

Media Implications of the Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-18T18:11:00.001-04:00

The recent catastrophe in the Gulf has serious implications across many different fields of thought and focus. One of the frequently overlooked implications has to do with media.

This event has been covered in such incredible detail, down to High-Definition video of the actual leak nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean. Maps, GIS information, photos, videos and tens of thousands of personal accounts of the aftermath have been flooding out of the area via platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

But there is a question that is very rarely asked. Is it possible that this enormous amount of information doesn't enhance but in fact actually dilutes the impact of this event on our lives? Watching oil spew from beneath the ocean is hard to put context to and the conversations about this incident that tend to happen in mainstream news outlet are superficial at best. Are these news reports mobilizing people to action? Are our lives better that we can see in HD oil filling an ocean? And a secondary question to that, is that do these same tools of communication and media provide us with the ability to take action in a way that we couldn't before, and is that worth the possible downsides this hyper-connected media world may bring with it?

Although this event doesn't necessarily itself change the way media works (though there have been some interesting related innovations, like Grassrootsmapping.org) it is at least an interesting example of how exponential media coverage is growing in our world and should serve as a reminder of how important is to look at these issues closely. This should, at the minimum, provide a foundation for a more in-depth look into how media is changing, and how that is going to impact out lives, government, culture, environment and world.

As always, I seem to enjoy asking the questions, rather than answering, but I hope if you are reading this, you will leave your comments and thoughts on these issues below!

Hampshire College & American Education

2010-06-12T13:05:00.000-04:00

Currently in the bridge at Hampshire for its 40th birthday. It's amazing that in only 40 years, Hampshire has solidified itself as one of the strongest innovators in higher education.

Too often in our country, education - at all levels - is focused on standardization and memorization, creating an unhealthy reliant relationship of the students on their teachers. Instead of ecnouraging critical thinking, we encourage direction following. And it is a surprise that we are loosing our place in the world as innovators?

Proper education, and I don't mean grades, degrees or 'academia' by that, is a foundation to a free democracy. People must have the skills and ability to respond to challenges that they will face at various points in their lives and be equipped to make the best and most thoughtful decisions possible. And Hampshire does a great job at encouraging a set a of values in its students that place importance on an external focus of using knowledge as a means to better one's community and world, and I hope that this type of educative philosophy someday becomes the mainstream in this country as we realize how important critical thinking is for a free society.

It's been a little while

2010-06-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

OK, so it has been a little while since my last post...

Since then, I have attended the Personal Democracy Forum, began working with the South Orange Rescue Squad and am beginning to, with the South Orange Police Department, reorganize the South Orange CERT program with help some friends at FEMA and CitizenCorps.

Stay posted for an update about PDF!

Examining Technology in Light of the Attempted Times Square Bombing

2010-05-15T10:10:00.001-04:00

Saturday, May 1st, a fellow CHS graduate and I were walking uptown from New York Penn Station, enjoying the sudden onset of nice weather. Avoiding walking through Times Square, a practice that most people without cameras draped over their neck or shirts that say “I Heart NY” partake in, I overheard someone mention both “Times Square” and “bomb” in the same sentence. I pulled up the AP story on my Blackberry and read about what was currently going on only blocks from where we were standing. Being a student of emergency management, I looked for a description of what was found to figure out whether we needed to head for the hills. To my relief, the explosive device seemed not to be an immediate threat anymore.
    However, after reading a more detailed account of the incident later, my fear returned as I realized how many simple things are not in place to prevent such threats from occurring, and how separating the ‘technology’ from the ‘platform’ is a distinction that must be made to ensure the advancement of useful public safety technologies that protect both our persons and our privacy rights.
    Let’s not forget or ignore that the fuse for the bomb was successfully ignited, but because of a malfunction the actual explosives did not fully detonate, same as last December. And same as December, people are not approaching this incident as if it had happened. Imagine if a few blocks of unsuspecting people in Times Square had been incinerated in the blast from a van with stolen license plates filled with explosives and driven right into Times Square. Manhattan would be on lockdown and Americans’ conception of safety would be shaken to its very core. Let’s count our blessings that in a five month period two attempts to inflict massive causalities in this country have failed.
    Instead of waiting for someone to commit such an act successfully, let’s imagine that it did happen. That level of frustration, anger and corresponding desire for new solutions needs to exist now. Instead of allowing our country to continue flawed and slow-moving technological advancement in the field of public safety, this event should serve as a galvanizing factor for us to move forward with unique and innovative technologies that provide creative and effective public safety solutions.
    My worry is that because we are not taking appropriate actions now, when a successful attack does happen, out of fear, we will be more willing to accept technologies and policies that do violate our civil rights. People, including Congress, were so thrown off balance by the attacks of September 11th that they were willing to accept a ‘solution’ (See: USA Patriot Act) that gave far more power to the government than necessary because it was easy and quick and helped calm a nervous public. In the study of emergency management, the period of time when a public will accept these types of draconian measures (“the recovery period”) is actually part of the curriculum.
    Even right now, we can take two current technologies: object-recognition software and police cameras that run license plates against vehicle databases. Combining these, we can create a system that would have, within seconds of the vehicle used Saturday night passing by a camera, detected that it had stolen license plates and flagged it for an in-person follow up. And as long as no data is stored and personally identifiable information cannot be accessed, such a protected automated system does not present any privacy concerns.
    When breaking down the arguments made against new technology, they have much more to do with the storage of personal information for indefinite periods than the actual technology, for example of a video camera, a device which millions of people voluntarily use daily to share private information with untold masses online. This more nuanced look at the issues makes a clear distinction between the ‘technology’ and ‘platforms.’ Technology is the capability to run a full-body image scan. The platform is how technologies are deployed, for example a full-body scanner used on people indiscriminately. Technologies themselves tend to be neutral until they are used a certain way.
    It is absolutely critical to seriously consider and discuss the implications of new technologies as they are developed. Perhaps there are protections that can be put in place to use a new technology effectively. Perhaps there are not. Either way, that debate needs to happen, needs to be robust and needs to be publicly acknowledged and understood. By thinking more outside the box than people have thus far and being more transparent and inclusive with our decisions, we can both protect our privacy and improve our nation’s public safety.

How Much Do Top Companies Pay In Taxes?

2010-04-04T20:41:00.000-04:00

A recent Forbes publication should serve as a reminder of the serious tax loopholes that allow large US companies to escape what would otherwise be a significant tax-based contribution to our government and country's economy.

Exxon Mobile was one such example. The company earned $35 billion of pre-tax profits in 2008. And how much did they pay on their federal income taxes? Zero dollars.

Perhaps if we want to work towards reducing the tax burden on our nation's citizen's, especially in challenging economic times, we should look to our corporations. They seem to be granted many rights, such as free speech rights to donate unlimited funds to federal political candidates says SCOTUS recently, yet often don't make a fair tax contribution, causing an undue burden on the rest of us.

Article from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_slide_3.html

3 Easy Steps to Import Your Facebook Friends to Twitter

2010-03-31T14:52:00.001-04:00

There seem to be a lot of folks who haven't been able to bring their Facebook friends into Twitter so that they can follow all their friends. If you don't have a friend's email address and don't feel like going through all of your friends on FB and doing this individually, here is the simple, simple, simple solution:

Go to your Yahoo email address. If you don't have one, just create one, this will still be quicker than any other solution
Yahoo has a new import Facebook friends feature. So, do it. Import all your FB friends into your Yahoo mail account
Go to Twitter, click 'find people' and then import your Yahoo contacts.

Easy as that, now you can check to see how many of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and follow them!

Let me know if this works/doesn't work for you and don't forget to follow me on Twitter! @alextorpey

Intro to Online Microtargeting

2010-03-29T15:56:00.001-04:00

As more organizations, businesses and campaigns look to the internet for there advertising needs, I thought it would be helpful to give a really brief intro to this field and offer some interesting resources as well.

First, in any online advertising campaign, you need to determine whether you want people to click on your ads (conversion) or whether you just want them to see your ad (persuasion). Most advertising networks, including Facebook and Google offer you both options, and you should choose whichever option you are not trying to do. If you expect a high click-through rate it would best to purchase pay-per-impression ads. However, if you don't expect many people to click on your ad then it would be best to purchase pay-per-click programs.

Next, there are many different networks that you can advertise in. For example, Facebook is a great way to reach college students whereas Google has better geographic pinpointing. These are the biggest two, but more should be considered based on who exactly you are trying to reach. Google let's you define keywords that you can be relevant to and Facebook lets you select profile information of the people you'd like to advertise to.

Ensuring that you have something unique to show or give people can't be overlooked of course. If you are running a political campaign, you can even do some negative campaigning on websites where people are likely to be an opponent or undecided because you are not required to publish a 'paid-for' disclaimer in small text ads. Additionally, people often have 'source amnesia,' where they forget where they originally heard something. Although people may say they don't like negative ads, they often use the talking points learned there months later without remembering where they heard it from. If there are issues you need to clear the air with but are worried they might be perceived as negative, use contextual online ads. If people are clicking-through to your site make sure that one click is the last stop. If you're looking for donations, have the landing page be the only page someone needs to visit to complete the transaction. Every additional click people have to make will discourage many from continuing.

Check out the Personal Democracy Forum's website for a plethora of resources, like archived podcasts on exactly this issue.

Also:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/23902.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtargeting

Healthcare Reform - Defining Socialism, Communist and Fascism

2010-03-25T13:55:00.002-04:00

In light of the furious debate around healthcare reform, and some people advocating the definition of healthcare reform (that sets a minimum standard for government regulation to spur competition in private markets to improve access to a private service) as either socialist, communist or fascist is misleading at best. I would like to provide some context to what these terms actually mean. Granted, these are not perfect definitions, as each term has libraries of literature written about them and I am not nearly educated enough on history to provide that deep of an analysis. However, I hope these will suffice as at least a very basic understanding and context for what each of these terms means.

Socialism - An economic theory or system where wage labor and private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods/services are replaced by total public ownership and operation. In a socialist economic system, the means of production and the forces both driving production of goods and providing of services is entirely owned publicly, for example through direct government control and ownership. This is different than government regulation, which seeks to provide standards in private markets operated and controlled by privately owned entities. Some (Karl Marx for example) define this at least partly as a system which advocates the maximization of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. Some also believe socialism is a transitional phase onward to communism. In application, socialist nations tend not be able to harness the rapidly innovative forces that exist in the free market. | See: Venezuela, Bolivia, China.

Communism - Theoretically, communism is a classless, stateless way for a society to be organized free of oppression and private markets, commodities or property ownership. In practice, communist principals have been attempted to be implemented by authoritarian states like the Soviet Union and China. Some theorists believe that communism is the final stage of societal evolution, however, in practice, the application of this theory has lead to massive corruption, oppression and a stronger institution of class structure and hindering the advancement of free market structures in producing innovative goods/services. | See: China, Cuba, North Korea.

Fascism - An authoritarian state that promulgates the advancement of a singular collective nation-identity, often based on either economic status or race, above all else. A centralized state structure that absolutely oppresses dissent, (often violently) democratic civic involvement and seeks to control information and economic and political activities with violent force and propaganda. | See: Nazi Germany, Iron Guard (Romania).

Healthcare reform falls in none of those categories. To debate this issue and ensure that we are implementing the most effective public policy is a necessary piece to the workings of our democracy. However, using terms like the above to try and re-classify something to make it sound like something it is not for political gains is an embarrassment to the democratic process of our free market of ideas.

Instead of battling over political ideology, and using any means necessary to preserve or advance one ideology over another by creating what might be repeated best in a soundbite, we must engage in a truly open, free, educated and rigorous debate on the issues that face our society. Only then we will be able to truly work towards solutions that, rather than benefit a political ideology or platform, will be for the benefit of each and every citizen within our democracy.

(1) Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6

(2) Oxford English Dictionary

(3) Merriam-Webster Dictionary

(4) "Communism". Columbia Encyclopedia. 2008.

(5) Lyons, Matthew N.. "What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features". PublicEye.org. Political Research Associates. http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/whatfasc.html.

Politics and How We Define Ourselves

2010-03-12T12:04:00.004-05:00

I came across the incredible infographic the other day that draws a contrast between people who are generally liberal and conservative, and the differing values that are important to each group, for example liberals as 'champions of downtrodden' and conservatives as 'champions of opportunity.' Although the graphic, which is of course not 100% accurate, as it is generalizing and categorizing people into two differing groups, does provide some interesting insight into the values that liberal versus conservative people and families tend to hold true, and does so in a way that seems very rational and non-biased.

One of the more interesting pieces to it, which is backed up with substantial sociological research, (for example Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff) is the differing family structures in liberal versus conservative households. More liberal families, which tend to be less religious are more democratic in their decision making - allowing children to play roles in decision-making on important household issues. Conservative families, which tend to be more religious, more often make decisions in a patriarchal fashion, where the father-figure is the ultimate authority and decision-making is not really open to discussion or dissent. That research provides enormous insight into how decisions are made by various political officials at even the highest levels of government.

All this to say that is important to understand those that you may disagree with. By understanding where people are coming from who you disagree with, you can make a much more profound effort at understanding and empathizing with peoples' ideas. By understanding eachother more, we can help frame discussions, especially in a public policy sphere for example, and act rather than in an obstructionist way out of ignorance or fear in such a way that encourages people to work together through understanding.

For the full-size version: http://infobeautiful.s3.amazonaws.com/leftright_US_1416.gif

Click to comment:

Reconciliation & Republicans

2010-03-05T14:56:00.000-05:00

If there was any doubt still that the Republican party as an organization was being purposefully obstructionist in regards to threatening to filibuster any healthcare reforms and accusing the Democratic party of tactical trickery by using reconciliation, check out this recent video that has begun to be circulated. In it, Republican Senator Judd Gregg in 2005 defends, on the Senate floor, reconciliation as a totally fair and just practice:

Read the article from RealClearPolitics here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2010/03/gregg_dem_reconciliation_spokesman.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rcp-today-newsletter

Thinking, Thinking and more Thinking

2010-03-04T18:23:00.001-05:00

I was given the opportunity to speak to two political science classes at Seton Hall today about politics and technology. Aside from having a great time (hopefully some students came away with a new interest of exploring the implications of new technologies) it really reminded me how important it is to really engage with the different technologies that we use everyday. Before long, new technologies that at first seemed strange, encroaching on our privacy or otherwise inconvenient seem to more-so define our daily lives.

The Facebook Newsfeed is a great example. When it came out, a large percentage of Facebook users got fairly upset how their lives were being displayed publicly for anyone to see. Now, imagine if Facebook took away the News Feed and the alerts about what our friends are doing? It hardly would even seem like an interesting or useful service to use. Yet, that is exactly what the service was for the first couple years of its deployment.

All of this not to say that these technologies, or more specifically, platforms, are necessarily, or inherently, bad, but rather that we really should make sure we all fully understand the long-term implications of the technologies that we more and more use everyday

Objectivity, News and Healthcare

2010-02-28T16:47:00.001-05:00

After the healthcare summit last week, these were the leading headlines on the three major news websites:

FOX: GOP comes out swinging.
CNN: Spirited but civil debate at healthcare summit.
MSNBC: Tempers flair at Obama's healthcare summit.

Each of those titles is really very different. It isn't even that one is 'liberal' and one 'conservative' necessarily or that two are stark opposites of each other. Each network just reached an entirely different conclusion as to how to summarize the summit in a one line title.

In a way, this isn't all bad, as for all news to report the same thing seriously risks discourse and debate being lost in our culture. Having a culture with a singularity around any field of knowledge is a serious impediment to progress and democracy. However, many people do watch one of those networks (or any news source, for that matter) as objective fact. But asking networks to be 100% objective is probably an impossible task as even TV anchors unconsciously give subtle clues to their own personal feelings in their posture, tone of voice and hand gestures. So the problem is not really the lack of subjectivity, but rather that these networks and news services claim to be objective (Fair & Balanced, anyone?) and therefore many people watch them expecting an objective analysis and don't place what they hear in a larger context.

There is nothing wrong with getting news from any of these sources. However, everything must be placed within the proper context of who is doing the reporting. This is another way that context is incredibly important in our society in terms of understanding information that it is presented with. To hear a soundbite and know whether it came from MSNBC or Fox News helps people understand better what they are hearing.

I can only keep my fingers crossed that one day Fox's 'Fair & Balanced' would change to 'Leading Conservative Provider of News.' Does anyone really believe after looking into the issue that Fox is fair and balanced? I hope not. And admitting a political inclination is not a bad thing at all. It's honest. Internet news sources seem to get quickly pinned as liberal or conservative and thus readers can try to place what they read in the proper political and cultural context, and we need to encourage networks to be honest and help people place what is reported on in a better frame of mind.

Context out of Context

2010-02-23T17:21:00.000-05:00

The idea of context is an interesting one, and a topic I've briefly covered in some past posts and columns, but I am beginning to realize that the idea of context is much more fundamental and important that it is gnerally given credit for.

In Jaron Lanier's book You are not a Gadget, he argues that my generation (Generation Y or the Millennials) and the younger generations are loosing context as part of our experience with culture and media. No longer must you read the entire length of a work to understand it, you can just head over to Wikipedia and look at bits and pieces gathered from various sources (sometimes up to 300-400 or more footnotes on a single Wikipedia page) and loose much of the context and importance that was meant to be conveyed in the original work. Academic works are amalgamated into mediums like Wikipedia, and art, music and video are mashed up into remixed YouTube videos, again with the original context of the work being totally lost when it is viewed in such a tertiary form. In fact, in many cases it's quite possible that tertiary viewer doesn't even know anything about the original creation, or that there really was even an original creation that allowed for the viewing of this work.

I wish I had more of a conclusion to draw, or even more of a direction in which to ask questions, but alas the best I can do right now is bring this issue and promise to revisit the idea of context and what it means that I believe younger generations are beginning, in all aspects of living, to lose context.

Broadband Accessibility

2010-02-18T17:12:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, it was reported from a study from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration that nearly 1/3 of Americans do not have broadband internet access, with that group being split between people still using dialup or not having any internet access whatsoever.

In an effort to ensure all people have access to news, information and educational and political resources, we should make sure that over the next decade we expand that coverage and make sure that broadband internet access is affordable across the country. At that point we can begin to fully harness the energy, creativity and opinions of all of our citizens, not just those who can afford access currently.

Full article: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/almost-a-third-of-americans-still-dont-use-the-net.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

What separates 'lucky' and 'unlucky' people?

2010-02-17T12:24:00.002-05:00

Have you ever wondered why some people tend to feel lucky all the time, while others do not? Well, just as many things seem to be, luck may be more of a product of our own mindset than any karmic or cosmic forces that might have been thought to be at work.

As Richard Wiseman points out in his article the Daily Telegraph, people can actually improve their luck by making sure to take certain steps in their life, like taking chances and paying attention to new opportunities.

Read the article here, today may be your lucky day: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html

I Just Signed Up For The Personal Democracy Forum - And So Should You!

2010-02-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

The Personal Democracy Forum, probably the foremost conference on the intersection of technology and government/politics is being held this year June 3-4th in NYC. I went last year, and the sessions and workshops I saw literally blew my mind. Here is my brief recap from last year's conference, and I look forward to more thoughtful discussions about these issues this year.

Too often we, as a nation, get stuck on a narrow-focused track moving in a certain direction, especially in politics. We are fortunate to have people like Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry who put together conferences like the Personal Democracy Forum each year and remind us of the importance of discussing critical issues in technology, most importantly how technology can impact government and politics. It's an incredible opportunity to get so many bright minds together to talk about how we can leverage technology to make government work better and work more transparently.

Check out the site and hopefully I will see you there in June!

Where Does The Blame Go?

2010-02-12T17:49:00.001-05:00

In terms of exploring the implications of technology on our way of life, it seems to me there is an interesting, yet rarely talked about, divergence between two broad groups of people who use technology. These two groups are people who understand and engage with technology on a somewhat natural level and those who do not.

I'd say one group tends to be younger and the blame when something goes wrong with technology is placed on the technology itself. In the other group, which I would suspect tends to be older, the blame is placed on the person trying to use technology for not understanding how to use the technology correctly.

Perhaps this state of mind of the younger generation is just more egocentric than the older generation that didn't grow up with the luxuries of technology that we have and have become accustomed to. Or, perhaps this frustration at technology is what fuels so many creative and determined people to found services like Napster, Google and Facebook - someone got frustrated that a particular service didn't exist or work 'like it should,' so they created it. Does this attitude translate into other parts of life, and if so, is it creating feelings of entitlement in a younger generation or feelings of motivation to improve our world? Just one more of the many questions I hope to be able to explore, and at some point answer. Thoughts?

"Dear Internet" - The Internet as a Distinct Community

2010-02-05T14:36:00.001-05:00

The nascent ‘online community’ that has been given the opportunity to exist from the emergence of the internet is the topic of this week’s column. Although many may define a community as being a cohesive gathering of distinct parts, often unified around one particular theme, goal or characteristic, the ‘internet’ has itself become a discreet entity that can be interacted with, in effect it is more than just the sum of its parts.
Before the internet, it was much more difficult to directly address a community without directly addressing specific people that make up that community. However, online social communication totally changed that idea.
As the image shows, there is a lot of communication that takes place from one person to ‘the

internet.’ That is a snapshot of the trending topics on Twitter recently, where the most used keywords and phrases being tweeted are compiled into a list and displayed, with sometimes hundreds of updates containing that specific keyword happening every minute. This same type of communication can be seen on YouTube where users address videos directly to the ‘YouTube Community.’ These people often share extremely intimate details of their lives, and do so in a way such that they have a) no idea who might watch them b) when people might watch them and c) in what context people are watching them.
        Compare the type of things that people communicate on TV, or even radio versus the internet. TV communication is censored, is strictly controlled, the messages and images (even on reality shows) are incredibly carefully pieced together, only a very few people have control over who gets to transmit that information and it is only one-way. The internet is the total opposite. As long as we have net neutrality, there are no controls or filters on what people say. Online communication can be anonymous, cannot be controlled by anyone and there is an unprecendently low barrier to access for people who want to broadcast their ideas.
    This revolution in communication creates an environment where people push in two seemingly opposite directions. One direction is some of the most unintelligent, sometimes outright hateful and barbaric content one might imagine. There are entire websites like lamebook.com that are dedicated to displaying the incredibly bizarre and sometimes outright insane or mean things people say on Facebook, in addition to the many websites which are based solely on propagating hateful content, often towards specific people or groups of people.
    At the same time, there is a wealth of truly amazing community outreach, support and inspiration for people in various challenging life situations, charitable fundraising, government accountability and intelligent issues discussions that is literally mind-boggling as to their quantity and authenticity.
    A great representation of this dichotomy is something I saw on Facebook the other day. This was an update where someone had become a fan at the same time of both a page titled “Slapping the Sh*t Out Of Stupid People” and a page titled “Victims of the Earth Quake Disaster In Haiti.”

Neither of those comments are at the total extreme, as some comedic value is is most definitely part of the first one, but the juxtaposition was too good not to mention and does represent two distinct ways people use social media.
I see the job of people in new media development such as myself, and anyone who might be reading this, to be brainstorming and promoting platforms that encourage the latter type of new communication - the kind that is supportive, caring, informative, personal and entirely authentic. People may be inherently dichotomous, and although there is no excuse to ever censor the ability for one to freely create content online, there is so much promise in pushing to develop ways to people to use their energy and ideas to contribute positively in civic life and to the lives of other people, and not just in their online community, but in that real-world community we all do still live in.

The Emerging Privacy Implications of Social Media

2010-01-23T09:19:00.000-05:00

This is the full un-edited text of my News-Record Column:

Earlier we looked at the strange, and fairly recent, shift in human communication where information could be reproduced, repeated and widely broadcasted. This week, we’re going to look at online privacy.
    30% of employers admit to using Facebook alone to vet potential employees. If that weren’t reason enough to think about online privacy, the majority of young people find it socially acceptable to look through someone’s Facebook profile and photos to learn about them before going on a first date and many parents now use online social networking tools as well. I use Facebook as a prime example because it has 350 million active users, half of whom log in at least once per day.
    On a website like Facebook, where 2.5 billion photos (and climbing) are uploaded to the site every single month - 30 billion photos every year - how much privacy is left?
    Not much, at least according to President Obama. When speaking to a group of high school students last year, he said in response to a question from one student about how to become president one day: “I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life,” Obama said. “That’s number one.”
    There is something epic happening in our culture when the President of the United States tells young people that the number one thing to remember if you are interested in becoming president is to be careful about content posted online.
    Even the way in which people converse on Facebook has seemed to change over the years. Conversations that used to happen either over phone calls, emails, text messages or private messages on Facebook now seem to happen right out in the open for, at the minimum, hundreds of people to see and save for eternity if they so desire.
    The way sites like Facebook or Myspace are designed encourage this, as the default means of communication is posting content to the semi-public wall of another user’s page. At what point did personal communication become a public spectacle?
    Most Facebook users do not have strict privacy settings and most Twitter users, for example, do not have protected (or private) updates. The mere action of communicating with one another has become a public event for people to comment on, reproduce, or save.
    On one hand, this new way of communicating is extremely interactive, to the extent that one can see on who is communicating with whom, can comment on any individual communication or even send it to another friend. This virtual community has an amazing upside - we have literally created new communities where there were non before. You can see what your friend thought of photos uploaded by another friend on the other side of the world.
    And not only do people publicly converse about normal things that used to be private by default, but people also tend to share more personal information about themselves online. Again, a double-edged sword - as this creates incredibly engaged, emotional and personal communities online, but also leads many people to put on display things they perhaps ought not, and in the future may wish they hadn’t.
    That is one of the downsides, related to what Obama said about online content being saved for eternity. And there is enormous social pressure put on people when their lives are literally on display for anyone to see. Relationships between people often start or end based on what happens on Facebook. Media ecologist Marshall McLuhan may have said it best, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”
    Our ability to recognize this problem, however, is important and I think we can temper the negative side effects and gain more of the positive. As per usual, I don’t think I can fully answer any of these questions or issues here, but it is very important to bring them up and ensure that the implications of some of these new and emerging technologies are taken seriously and discussed.
    In the meantime, check out my blog for the 5 Facebook privacy settings you need to ensure you have control over your privacy online.

Quick Guide To Facebook Privacy

2010-01-20T18:01:00.001-05:00

Facebook has 350 million users, half of whom log in at least once per day. Do you know want all those people to see all of your personal information? Here is a quick guide to understanding privacy on Facebook and the five privacy settings you should know about:

1) Friend Lists

These can be a little time consuming to set up a first time around, but they do help you have some control over who views certain content on your profile and make things easier potentially in the long run. Navigate to your friends page and you'll see an option to create friend lists. Maybe setting up Family, Friends and Co-Workers is a way to go, but whatever you do, friend lists are a very helpful tool that Facebook offers its users.

2) Tagged Photos and Videos

Go to your privacy settings page (Settings and then Privacy Settings) and you can enter a custom privacy settings for photos and videos that you have been tagged in, for example allowing only you to be able to see them.

3) Your Photo Albums

You can set privacy settings on each individual photo album that you upload to Facebook. With about 30 billion photos being uploaded to Facebook each year, odds are there are some photos that may be a bit more personal than others, and Facebook allows you to set the level for each album if you so choose.

4) Your status updates and wall posts

Recently, Facebook changed the way that you can control privacy when updating your status or posting to your wall. Now, each time you post an update you can select who (down to literally selecting friend by friend if you want to) will see your updates. The privacy button for the updates is right next to the "update" button when you publish a status update.

5) Your profile information

This is a basic one, but important. Go back to the privacy settings page and you can check off which information on your profile you would like to be visible to whom. If you are using Facebook for networking, you may want to keep work information viewable, while things like relationship status private.

None of these settings are any fool-proof way to ensure that you don't get embarrassed online or have personal information, private photos or videos or inappropriate status updates seen by the world. The best tip that anyone can give: If you don't want stupid photos of you showing up on Facebook, don't act stupid. If you must, then at least don't take pictures of it.

Studies routinely show that people are willing to share far more information online than they would be in a direct physical setting, so keep in mind how you would have felt about the information you are about to post to Facebook being on public display before this thing called Facebook came along - a time when communication between people was generally private by default.

Online Sarcasm

2010-01-16T15:17:00.001-05:00

Have you ever been a situation where you made a sarcastic statement online, only to be rebuffed by an angry or confused colleague or friend?

Well, one company thinks they have the solution: SarcMark. A new character (to the right of the "SarcMark") to be used in online communication, the SarcMark is supposed to be able to designate that the sentence to which the punctuation is attached was sarcasm.

This is a brilliant idea, as no doubt many people have trouble communicating sarcasm online, an for the visually impaired, having a standard punctuation mark to denote sarcasm will really help with reading online.

Unfortunately, SarcMark costs $1.99 to download and use. Do they expect that the hundreds of millions of people using computers will each pay $2 to download this nifty punctuation mark? And thusly make hundreds of millions from this one product. Not likely. So much so, that the likely winner in creating a new punctuation mark for sarcasm will be a company who releases the character into the public domain so that it may be used widely. Hint: any graphic designers out there.

But then again, I'm just fine with writing sarcastically ambiguous statements online that confuse people. [SarcMark]

http://mashable.com/2010/01/15/sarcmark/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6995354/Sarcasm-punctuation-mark-aims-to-put-an-end-to-email-confusion.html

The Costs of Waiting

2009-12-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

When thinking about investing money in infrastructure (whether physical, political, educational, etc) like healthcare it's important to frame the context in which this debate is being held. Let's be honest: our current system will change, probably quite often until some sort of equilibrium is reached, and then it will just change again. The idea of changing something we have now should never, ever be controversial.

Unfortunately, a counterproductive practice people tend to exhibit, that has been more recently explored in the field of behavioral economics, is peoples' misperception that waiting costs nothing.

I find the phrase 'status quo' interesting, because, in reality, it doesn't exist. Nothing is ever not changing in some way. The changes may be small or may seem unrelated, but they are not. And in terms of healthcare, the costs are enormous as emergency rooms become more overcrowded and more American families are faced with the horror of not having the ability to ensure the safety and health of their loved ones.

I am not even advocating a particular solution, and in fact, none of the solutions we have are perfect, and they never will be, but as science moves forward exploring and learning, so must we in public policy. And part of that is realizing that waiting has costs just as much as bad policy does, maybe even more. Not everyone will get exactly what they want out of this debate, but let's think about how we can best move this policy forward and help cover more of those 47 million uninsured Americans.

An Open Letter to Research in Motion

2009-12-18T18:23:00.002-05:00

Many people rely on their BlackBerry device to provide data and email services on the go. However, if email services fail, critical information or emails may not get through to the user. And unfortunately for the user, it is not always possible to tell when data services have gone down.

RIM should create an automatic process by which an SMS is sent to all subscribed data users (because when data/email fails SMS almost always still works) letting the user know that the email/data service is down, and to check the website, etc for updates.

This way if a user is expecting an important email, for example, they can make arrangements to get information from another source, rather than be in the dark as to why an email hasn't arrived. If you are on business somewhere and rely on your BlackBerry for email but email service is down, simply having that information can help avoid missing any critical information.

Sign the petition via Twitter here: http://act.ly/1k0

Good News for Cell Phone Users

2009-12-05T15:33:00.000-05:00

A 30-year, nearly 16 million person study concluded on Thursday that there was no link between cell phone usage and the potential development of brain tumors.

As reported in the The Age "We did not detect any clear change in the long-term time trends in the incidence of brain tumours from 1998 to 2003 in any subgroup," Isabelle Deltour of the Danish Cancer Society and colleagues wrote."

Read the full story here.

Intellectual Honesty and Modern Communication

2009-12-05T09:53:00.000-05:00

Throughout the course of history, there have been many times when letters have been discovered posthumous which were written by a jurist, scholar or public official which contained controversial personal testimony or ideas far too radical for their time. That was a time when the original document or letter could not be reproduced in a way that could guarantee the authenticity of the reproduction. Meaning, people could write letters to colleagues, friends or even enemies across the country and the chance that the writing would ever leave the hands of the original recipient was very low. And furthermore, the chance that anything personally damning could be spread throughout the media was even lower. No longer is this the case.

I cannot fully express in this post how much that has changed. It has been a seemingly subtle and largely unseen transformation but it is inexorably fundamental to the core principals of how we communicate. No longer is communication, in any form, guaranteed confidential. Yes, some people have confidentiality notices on emails, or expect that “private messages” on websites are indeed private, but they are not. And not just because these messages often get stored indefinitely by a third party, but because in many cases these communications are stored, indexed, searched and cached - Indefinitely. Twitter posts, Facebook posts, blog entries, email list messages (yes, many email listservs are indexed and cached in Google) are often if not always available in search results. And forget all of the emails, IMs, text messages and private/direct messages that are private yes, but stored without any policy as to their lifespan on third party servers.

In fact, search engines like Google cache (save old revisions) almost all of the content it indexes for its search, and there are many companies, organizations and movements gaining traction to track and save as many revisions and history of all online content for historical purposes.

This means that everyone in our culture is held to an astonishingly high degree of accountability as to everything they do or say. 150 years ago, or even less, you could not play a video, a sound recording, or show a snapshot of a website against one from another time. Now, socially critical TV shows, radio shows and websites routinely show a sound bite from two years ago in one context next to a sound bite of another context, seemingly showing the person ‘flip-flopping.” And what is the implication of this?

Well on the positive side, it creates accountability for anyone, especially public officials. It’s easy at this point in time, to ‘check the record’ to see what was really said or done in any past situation. And in reference to tracking online content, it provides a fascinating look into the progression of information and human culture. Both excellent benefits, however, there is a downside.

I’ll call this downside it intellectual superficiality. This is the state of affairs, which we are currently in, which fundamentally started with the photograph or photocopier, where one must start to grapple with the fact that anything written, said or done, may at some point be exactly reproduced, and could come back to them in such a way that could easily be spread quickly via online audiences. How thoughtful and upfront do we expect each other to really be?

Is it possible that these advanced forms of communication are actually creating a culture that doesn’t value thoughtfulness, honesty or disclosure in all aspects of life, but perhaps favors plausible deniability and vagueness instead? And what does that mean for the future of technology and communication and the concept of what is private versus what is public?

Some Quick Tips on How to Give a Successful Powerpoint/Keynote Presentation

2009-11-29T14:58:00.005-05:00

Whether you are looking to do a presentation in a class, at work, or to a potential client, there are some serious do's and dont's of giving presentations - especially if you are going to supplement your presentation with a Powerpoint/Keynote slideshow. There are two different pieces to the presentation that are important. First is the actual presenting, i.e. how you speak, make eye contact etc. The second is whether you use, and how you use an electronic slideshow of some sort.

Regardless of whether you are using any material to supplement your presentation, there are a few simple but critical things that need to happen:

Eye Contact: Not only does it show confidence and engagement with your subject, it helps people feel connected to you personally. Additionally, by making constant eye contact with actual audience members (don't forget about the people to your far left and right) this gives you a chance to read the reactions of your audience. You can tell if people seem to be perplexed, excited or bored and you can adjust what you're saying on the fly to make the talk more interesting
No Reading: Reading off of a speech or any written material averts your eyes from the audience and doesn't show an engagement with the material. Reading a speech word for word sounds exactly like that, which is not what people are interested in hearing from you. If you need to use a speech, practice it ahead of time so that when you give your presentation, although you may have the speech with you, you know it so well you will rarely need your notes. Don't try and recite the speech from memory, but instead become so familiar with what you want to say, speaking about the topic becomes (and sounds) natural.
Use Bullet Points: The best way to transition into making better speeches, or to help you through a talk that has statistics or other hard to remember bits of information, is by using bullet points. Instead of writing up a speech, make sure you are familiar with the topic, and then use a few bullet points to help keep you on track.
Project: Not just voice, but confidence, intelligence and engagement. Speak directly to the people who are the farthest away from you (for example sitting in the back row) to make sure you reach all of your audience. Often people focus on the front row or whoever they know in the audience or is the closest. Projecting to the farther audience member will guarantee you are speaking to everyone closer than them and show you are confident in the subject

The next piece, making sure your presentation or slideshow is up to par, is often overlooked. In these situations, less is more, and a crowded or poorly done slideshow will ruin an otherwise interesting talk. A few quick pointers:

Less is more, don't crowd slides with lots of notes or images
Use the slides as a supplement not as the focus of the talk
Don't let the slides or anything else distract people away from you
Keep slides simple and without fancy designs, those powerpoint templates are bad news
Make sure you are familiar enough with your material so that you don't need to read off of your own slides.

Good slide:

Bad Slide:

The best comparison regarding the difference between good and bad slideshows can be seen in this short article comparing Microsoft's Bill Gates using Powerpoing and Apple's Steve Jobs using Keynote: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/09/steve-bill-redu.html

Quick Reference Guide for Statistics

2009-11-29T14:29:00.005-05:00

This is actually pretty useful:

Why don't people vote and what can we do about it?

2009-11-20T17:32:00.002-05:00

In my column last week we briefly looked at how social perceptions are the primary driving force behind motivating people to get out and vote come election day. However, most people, by a substantial majority, do not actually vote. What are the forces at work that keep people home on election day? And if social perceptions influence how people vote, could affecting a change of the social and cultural perceptions around voting could lead to an increased voter turnout over time?

Working on election day November 3rd provided a very interesting experience about all of these issues. I learned a great deal about peoples’ feelings and thoughts towards voting from the conversations that I became engaged in throughout the day.

By and large, the people who weren’t planning on voting, weren’t registered, and perhaps never have voted, expressed a certain skepticism about the process itself and about how important their role in the process of choosing representatives was. Interestingly, to this group of people, the idea that their one vote was no more or less than anyone else’s created a feeling of unimportance. Oddly, this is the opposite of many other people’s reactions, who feel empowered to be able to freely cast their ballot for the representative of their choice.

Additionally, there are people, for example a couple, who agree to disagree on the candidate of their choice, and by perhaps both even going to the polls together, effectively cancel each other’s vote, yet still feel necessity of going to the polls.

However, all these different ideas and perspectives are just many ways to look at the same situation. For example, some people feel empowered that by going to the polls, they can ‘cancel out’ the vote of an opposing voter. Others, however, feel powerless as they feel their vote will be ‘canceled out’ by someone less informed by them. Each situation is exactly the same, it is just two people casting opposing votes, yet one glass half-full perspective sounds positive while the glass half-empty perspective sounds completely futile.

What this really comes down to is that voting is more about social perceptions than anything else. People who feel that their vote is futile will fulfill their own destiny by not voting and making their opinion futile, which will only create more frustration down the road as the person becomes increasingly outside of the process happening around them. And people who feel that their vote is powerful will get out there and feel engaged to whatever is happening - even if they disagree with it.

That engagement is they key piece to the puzzle. Not everyone will always agree. The only way we could have true total 100% representation is if we all were representatives in a pure democracy, yet even then I would think that we wouldn’t understand and agree with even ourselves as much as we’d like to think.

So what can we do about people who feel powerless and disengaged? By making people feel invested in their community and their world, we can work to avoid the tragedy of the commons scenario that our voting numbers are emblematic of.

Getting involved or volunteering for something in the direct community is a sure way to start to feel connected and a working and productive part of this crazy and chaotic world.

If we can help focus more education efforts at really fostering a feeling of community ownership, we can begin to reverse the unfortunate trends over the past few decades of decreased community and civic involvement.

For a person who has never voted before, casting a ballot on a national level may seem of too little impact. Opening up government to really connect, work with and seek the feedback of residents on all ranges of projects is a prime way to help people feel they are part of something that is both larger than themselves and larger than the sum of its parts. Feeling part of something productive like that is an inspiring experience. Embracing the use of technology for open government and community engagement to reach new audiences and make new connections are sure ways for us to get there.

You have more control than you think

2009-11-17T23:27:00.006-05:00

Losing one’s inhibitions and judgments has been ingrained into our culture as natural and inevitable effects from consuming alcohol. We teach our young people these things, and coincidentally, they end up displaying them as they grow older and begin experimenting with alcohol.

The idea that alcohol takes control over people and forces them act certain ways has not always been the prevailing idea. In fact, before the temperance movement picked up steam in the mid 1800s, alcohol was seen as a healthy, necessary and nutritious part of a rugged frontiersman lifestyle. However, strong and radical religious groups began to campaign against alcohol itself as the migration into cities that occurred around the industrial revolution broke down the social controls around behavior and the importance of being sober when using new machinery took hold in the workplace. Before then alcohol was seen as pretty much entirely beneficial.

Now, due to modern temperance political organizations, alcohol still has the same intense stigma that was attached to it leading up to prohibition. The idea that (a) once someone drinks they will most likely not be able to stop themselves from becoming alcohol-dependent and (b) once someone drinks they are no longer in control of their actions or emotions are puritan-based ideologies that in fact have no roots in medical science.

Just this week, more research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions shows that people may in fact be much more in control of their drinking habits than originally believed. In fact, about 70% of those who experienced serious alcohol-related dependence problems entirely recovered on their own and, more importantly, cut back to responsible consumption patterns, and did not give up alcohol entirely. Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at NIAAA, said in the LA Times that "It can be a chronic, relapsing disease. But it isn't usually that.”

The controversy around alcoholism wages on as the medical and scientific community is not in agreement as to how alcohol-dependence can manifest itself into a physically addictive condition. This research however, which is the largest alcohol-related study ever done in the US, suggests that we are moving forward to a better understanding of alcohol and behavior.

The idea that all people loose control with alcohol is a commonly accepted, though incorrect, assumption. It has, however, become totally ingrained in our society. Throughout the country, it is actually the bartender’s personal responsibility (and legal liability) to not serve anyone who is visibly intoxicated (a rule rarely, if ever, followed). The idea being that once someone begins drinking, they can no longer control whether they continue drinking. The excuse “Well I was drunk, what did you expect?” is a frustrating phrase heard all to often where people, rather than taking responsibility for their actions, blame the alcohol, much as was done during temperance.

Just this week, a trending topic on Twitter was “patrondidit,” expanded to Patron (a brand of Tequila) did it, i.e. alcohol being blamed for whatever the person might’ve done. Tequila itself actually takes the position of the most often quoted alcohol to relieve one of responsibility, even though its effects, and actually this goes for all types of alcohol of comparable alcohol content, are exactly the same, and the difference in behavior between different types of alcohol are entirely influenced by social expectations. Throughout history, there have even been nations that grant legal immunity to people who are drunk, while there are cultures, some that still exist, that do not accept intoxication as a social excuse for any social misbehavior.

The landmark study by acclaimed Brown University Anthropologist Dwight B. Heath in 1958 on the Camba of Eastern noted that “None of the stereotypes that are often applied to heavy drinkers was salient for the simple reason that behaviour while drinking was so little different from the normal behaviour during the long intervals between drinking.” The information from the recent NIAAA study reinforces the idea that the effects of alcohol on behavior (note: alcohol has serious effects on motor coordination and in some cases memory) are far more influenced by social expectations around acceptable behavior than anything biological or inherent in consuming alcohol.

I have mentioned the word responsibility multiple times, and it is a very important theme regarding how we educate, propagate cultural norms and set our state and national policies.

Instead of creating legislation that seeks to forward a moral stance, and is ignorant to the massive unintended consequences that are a degrading culture around responsibility, rising alcohol problems among our youth and rising incidents of drunk driving, we need to focus on creating policy that accurately sets standards of responsibility in our culture. By changing our current culture of repressive irresponsibility around alcohol into a socially-accepted and controlled culture of responsibility we can have positive lasting impacts on the safety and health of our young people.

Note: I do not support lowering the drinking age, but rather comprehensive enhanced alcohol policies that are based off of the fundamentals our successful graduated drivers license programs. Yes that means a graduated drinking age. Read more here.

Follow up Links

2009-11-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

From Pyschology Blog: Why do people bother voting: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/why-do-people-bother-voting.php

More information about the prisoner's dilemma: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/

VOTE TODAY!

2009-11-02T20:23:00.004-05:00

Make sure to get out and vote today. Click here to find your polling location: http://bit.ly/njvotinginfo

October 29th News-Record Column: How the internet empowers the people:

2009-10-31T14:55:00.002-04:00

Click here to read the article: http://bit.ly/2ORXJI

More Information on Column

2009-10-26T12:31:00.000-04:00

Please watch Michael Wesch's Talk "The Machine is (changing) Us here.

More links about this subject:
Media Ecology on Wikipedia
Media Ecology Association

Some further comments:
Although there is no way to answer the question of how exactly we are changing media and how in turn, our media is changing us, it is important to ask and to explore. Just because we don't have the answer doesn't mean we should not ask the question. We can learn a lot about ourselves and the way we communicate just by asking questions about media ecology and culture. I hope to cover this topic more both in my blog and in my column, so definitely keep an eye out for what I hope to be more and continued question asking about how we interact with eachother.

WhiteHouse.gov Goes Open Source

2009-10-25T20:40:00.002-04:00

On October 24th, the White House switched their website (whitehouse.gov) to Drupal, an open-source content management system. This will be hosted on Linux Red Hat servers.

Clearly this a big win for open source proponents as the White House has taken a large step in opening the door for more government departments on all levels to consider using open-source technology. In working towards better government transparency, the Obama Administration has made several large steps towards that goal, and this latest development in that field. There is a lot of opportunity for Government 2.0 deployments, and it is great to see Obama Administration so clearly on board with enhancing government transparency.

Read More:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/whitehouse-switch-drupal-opensource.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20091024/us-obama-web-site/

The Flu Vaccine

2009-10-15T16:41:00.006-04:00

I just finished reading John M. Barry's Book: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (for my Emergency Planning & Response class at John Jay) where Barry eloquently traces the history and every detail about how around 50 million people died in the 1918 influenza pandemic. I used to to say "Why are people making such a big deal over Swine Flu?" Then I read that the flu pandemic in 1918 which was, by far, the worst pandemic in the history of the world, is the same strain of flu, H1N1, that is our so-called Swine Flu.

The issue of mandatory vaccines is a complicated one, much more complicated than either side of the debate gives it credit for. Are we facing the same possibility of a severe epidemic? Or is this possible threat being elevated by American media in love with creating fear when there need not be?

To really answer the question of whether mandatory vaccines are ethical we much first have a better understanding of the threat that we are facing and at that point we can make a thoughtful, rational and expeditious decision as to how best to balance ensuring personal liberty while protecting public safety.

President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T13:37:00.004-04:00

Internet media especially is in a frenzy today as everyone looks to get in their word edgewise on Obama's, what turned out to be controversial, winning of a Nobel Peace Prize. The award came at a time when Obama is facing crucial decisions regarding troop levels in Afghanistan.

Many Obama supporters hail this as a landmark occasion where the international community has finally recognized Obama's ideas and vision for a more peaceful and diplomatic world where working with other nations and cultures is seen as a priority rather than a drag on international relations.

Conservatives, and a fair amount of Obama supporters, on the other hand, feel that this award was issued far too early, at best, and cannot possibly be based off of his record because nominations were due for the award almost immediately after he took office.

Others even may say this award comes at an awkward time, as a NASA rocket was just launched into the moon. (Though for peaceful purposes. For now. You're on watch Moon.)

Although both sides have a good point, it seems to have brought to light two very important points:

First, Obama has not yet delivered on his campaign promises of bringing peace, withdrawing troops and shutting down Guantanamo Bay. Granted, he has not been in office a very long time, and to make such large changes considering the past eight years requires a lot of political capital that he may not have yet. But unless he can constructively shape this healthcare debate, he may have trouble gaining that much-needed capital.

Second, conservatives and the Republican Party seem that they would rather see Obama fail than see our country succeed. That definitely doesn't apply to everyone who considers themselves right of center, but 'mainstream' American conservatism has definitely picked out Obama as a target, for whatever reasons, and celebrate his failures, like when Chicago lost out for the Olympic bid. What happened to the standing beside your President in tough times, a mantra oft-repeated during the Bush years?

My take on it? Regardless of whether or not he should have been awarded the prize now, I am confident that by the time Obama leaves office he will have demonstrated that he does indeed deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.

How relative is relativity?

2009-09-29T22:01:00.002-04:00

Before I begin, I’d like to first ask you all to look at the images to the right and note what you see:

Almost everyone immediately perceives the darker circle on the left as being bigger than the one on the right. But is it really? It turns out the two circles are identical, yet just by surrounding that size shape with similar shapes of different sizes, we can immensely impact how the darker circle is perceived. The word perception is important because although the shapes are indeed identical, they are generally perceived to be different. This is this problem with relativity - it is fairly easy to manipulate how one sees something simply by changing the environment around it. Over the next few weeks, we will examine the impact of these theories on our spending. This week: How much is distance worth?

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman explored this idea in their paper “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Imagine you are in an office supply store, about to purchase a $25 pen. Aomeone whispers to you that a store 15 minutes away is selling that same pen for $18, a $7 savings. Would you take the drive to save money on the pen? The majority of people would. Next scenario: you are in a clothing store shopping for a $455 coat. Another customer informs you that the same coat is on sale for $448 at a store 15 minutes away. Would you drive the 15 minutes to save the $7 on a $455 coat? The majority of people would not.

One would expect that you would perform a quick cost/benefit analysis, basically: How much you would save minus how much it would cost to drive there (perhaps gas plus cost of time). However, if that were the case, then it wouldn’t matter if the $7 savings was on a $10 item, or a $10,000 item. But clearly that is not the case. Would you make any effort, say even go five minutes down the street to save $7 on a $20,000 car purchase? Not many people would put in that effort. But why? Shouldn’t saving money be worth it regardless of the price of the product you are saving it from?

It turns out that people do not generally base this decision off of a fixed or objective amount, but rather think about it relatively, in terms of a percentage. In the first scenario, the percentage savings were substantial, about 28%. However, in the second scenario, the percentage savings were seemingly insignificant, less than 2%. For some reason, people think about these savings on a relative basis, avoiding such facts such as actual savings in dollars. Nobody balances their checkbook with every withdrawal notated as a percentage of total savings, and products don’t cost a percentage of something - they just have a fixed cost that is deducted from our fixed savings.

Next time you are considering take the drive, or brushing off the worthlessness of taking a drive to save some money, calculate your decision based on actual cost, not percentages. You would be surprised how much money you could save if you think critically about all costs when purchasing something expensive. It’s easy to add options onto a car, leave a negotiation for a house without putting in a full effort or otherwise say something along the lines of “Well I’m already spending so much, what does this extra little bit matter?” If it is worth saving $7 on a pen, it is worth saving $7 on a coat. $7 is $7 no matter how must the product costs.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to bring to light some interesting problems with the way we think about finances in an effort to provide some non-intuitive advise and insight on how to save money in tough economic times. Next week: Spotting the decoy in product marketing.

Further Reading:

- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice by A Tversky and D Kahneman
Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan

Embracing Technology for Open Government

2009-09-03T09:28:00.002-04:00

Open Government has become quite a campaign buzzword over the past few years as technology and computer/online software are beginning the show the limitless potential available to us to create accessible and transparent government.

There are two primary distinctions when looking at the utilization of technology in government. The first is how government appears, or is accessible, to people. The second is government works internally.

The first has been adopted quite widely in campaign settings. Campaign websites often offer social-networking connections, mobile updates, smartphone apps, and other interactive features that help people stay connected. This transparency and engagement as not been widely adopted in the actual governance process, however. Although indeed rare, there are a few excellent examples. The best one may be the Federal IT Dashboard, a website that traces and explains all federal IT spending. Check out the website at: http://it.usaspending.gov/. You can find all of the investments, contracts, people in charge of projects, timelines and more. This site should be a tool not only to research federal spending but as an example of how open government can look and work.

The second is government technology for internal processes. One of the often quoted reasons for some failings in national security in the past is that defense and intelligence agencies, up until the past year or two, were using outlandishly outdated software that didn't allow collaboration or communication between different operatives in the field. Now many agencies have adopted Wikipedia-like software in top-secret platforms to encourage collaboration and sharing of information among various agents and agencies. This type of software, though of course critical in high-risk national security situations, can also be applied to save government money through increased efficiency while improving the services that are offered to people. The private sector has been pushing into increased collaboration and connectivity between various people working on projects, and that same technology could be applied to government to vastly improve upon the technology that exists and is used now.

Every once in a while, I will update this blog with interesting software or platforms which I encourage people to read further about:
Federal IT Dashboard: http://it.usaspending.gov/
NY Senate Website: http://www.nysenate.gov/

Speaker of New Jersey General Assembly Will Not Seek Another Term

2009-09-03T09:20:00.004-04:00

Joseph Roberts, the Speaker of the General Assembly in the New Jersey Legislature will not be seeking another term, he announced on Wednesday

The announcement threw state legislators into a whirlwind on Wednesday, reports PolitickerNJ, as officials throughout the state are trying to figure out who will fill in that leadership position. Roberts spent 22 years in the General Assembly and cited his reason for not seeking another term that he needs a break.

Read More:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/three_nj_lawmakers_eyeing_asse.html

http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/32859/roberts-announcing-retirement-downplays-possibility-senate-run

In Just 24 Hours, Newark Shudders Under Weight of Five Shootings

2009-08-18T21:14:00.005-04:00

Over a 24 hour period, starting Monday morning with the death of a 14 year-old, there were six people injured in a total of five shootings in Newark.

Newark, once a cultural mecca in New Jersey - and much of the country - has in recent decades faced high crime rates, consistently putting the city ranked highest in the country among crime. Before 2006, a significant amount of that crime was taking place within the governing body of the city when former Mayor Sharpe James, who is now a convicted felon serving a 27-month prison term, used to be in charge. Since then, Mayor Cory Booker has taken crime and pubic safety head-on, though still faces significant challenges such as those 24 hours demonstrate. As reported by NJ.com, Mayor Booker said, "We're seeing still some progress but the last week or two has shown us that we still have a long way to go"

Several of the victims on Monday were innocent bystandars, such as one 62 year-old resident who was shot in the hip by a gang related drive-by as she was taking out the trash in front of her apartment.

Clearly there is no simple solution to this problem. It is obvious, more than ever, however, that intelligent and forward thinking policy and culture change are needed to ensure that our communities are safe and that no resident need worry about their safety when taking out their trash.

Making The Problem Worse: Sweet Sixteen Broken Up, 10 Kids Arrested In Parsippany

2009-08-12T18:39:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday night, Parsippany Police broke up a sweet 16 party after receiving a noise complaint.

Five officers responded to a house at around 1130pm after receiving reports of screaming and loud noises. The officers entered the house to discover a large amount of young people under 21 drinking, a few over 21, and the homeowner.

10 people under 21 were arrested and issued summonses, in addition to the homeowner who was also charged with providing alcohol to minors.

Do we really think that charging these young people with a crime will deter them? Or even more fundamentally, were they really doing something wrong? There were no reports of violence, of drunk driving, or of anything dangerous, but rather the "problem" itself was that alcohol was being consumed. And with older people and a parent present.

The only thing this accomplished was teaching the parents to not consume alcohol with their children and children not be loud when they drink. Anyone who thinks that arrests like these actually deter young people from drinking is entirely ignorant of the problems of alcohol abuse among young people and need to face the facts: Young people drink, and because of counter-productive policies that encourage underground drinking, they are drinking more excessively than they used to. If we want to break this cycle we will need to ditch the failed ideology that has created this problem and take a new outlook on how to keep young people safe with alcohol.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090811/UPDATES01/90811025/1005/NEWS01/Police+break+up+Sweet+16+party+in+Parsippany++10+charged

2 South Carolina Judges Rule 21 Year-Old Drinking Age Unconstitutional

2009-08-03T19:08:00.004-04:00

Two South Carolina County judges ruled that the 21 year-old drinking age is unconstitutional.

Aiken County Chief Magistrate Rodger Edmunds and Richland County Magistrate Mel Maurer ruled that laws could only prohibit people under 21 from purchasing alcohol, and could not prohibit people under 21 from consuming or possessing alcohol. The main justificiation for the federally mandated 21 year-old drinking age is using the often-quoted commerce clause of the US Constitution, which allows Congress to regulate issues involving interstate commerce.

As reported by CarolinaLive.com "Both decisions relied on a 2008 SC State Supreme Court ruling that overturned a state law banning 18 to 20 year olds from possessing handguns."

Both cases have been appealed, and will be heard in South Carolina's circuit court of appeals.I will post updates to these cases as they progress through the judicial system.

Sources and Reading
http://www2.counton2.com/cbd/news/local/article/2_south_carolina_judges_challenge_drinking_age/49856/
http://www.carolinalive.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=332096
http://www.alphecca.com/?p=1627

Independent Candidate Chris Daggett Names His Lt. Governor Nomination

2009-07-29T21:38:00.004-04:00

On Tuesday, Independent New Jersey Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Daggett selected his nomination for lieutenant governor.

Daggett named Frank Esposito, a professor of history and education at Kean University for his Lt. Governor nomination. Daggett said of Esposito, "Frank Esposito has been in the forefront of the movement to reform our education system, which too often has failed New Jersey's children."

Vying to make education on the forefront of his platform, Daggett wants to tap the experience of Esposito to ensure voters see his platform as a strong supporter of reforming education in New Jersey. After the large corruption scandals which resulted in 44 total arrests which spanned both the Democrat and Republican parties, Daggett is claiming that, being the independent candidate, he is the real person who can reform Trenton.

Read More
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090728_Daggett_names_Frank_Esposito_as_running_mate.html

Crucial Doctor in 21 Drinking Age Establishment Joins Founder of MADD In Speaking Out Against 21

2009-07-28T18:39:00.007-04:00

Dr. Morris Chafetz, a psychiatrist who, in the early 1980s, sat on the presidential commission in that recommended raising the national drinking age from 18 to 21 now regrets his decision.

Dr. Chafetz now considers his role in pushing for the drinking age "the single most regrettable decision" of his career, reports the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Chafetz believes the 21 year-old drinking age has not worked, and, "To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States." Additionally, Dr. Chafetz recognizes the immense harm caused by the unintended consequences the drinking age has caused in American drinking culture, including the 1,800 deaths per year among college-aged youth in deaths related to alcohol.

Dr Chafetz is not in fact the first person (nor most likely the last) who has changed their mind being originally involved in supporting the drinking age, and now being outspoken against it.

Candice Lightner was the mother of 13 year-old Cari Lightner, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1980, the event which prompted Lightner to start Mothers Against Drunk Driving later that same year. The driver, Clarance William Busch, who killed young Cari, had 22 traffic citations on his record, including four for drunk driving (for which he had served at most 48 hour in jail). His fourth drunk driving accident, another hit and run, occurred just two days before killing Cari Lightner. Interesting, or ironically, for the drinking age argument, Busch was 46 years old at the time of the accident.

Busch had despicable track record that anyone would agree should be warrant enough to permanently revoke one’s driving privileges. After what happened to her daughter Lightner became concerned with the lack of severity for repeat offenders, and saw it as her duty to push for tougher drunk driving laws, especially for repeat offenders. However, Lightner soon left MADD and became one of the most outspoken critics of how purely “anti-alcohol” MADD has become. She stated that MADD “has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the
issue of drunk driving." Lightner left MADD in 1985, just one year after MADD lobbied the federal government to raise the drinking age to 21.

The issues surrounding youth alcohol abuse and drunk driving are serious, complicated and have historically convoluted explanations. As more people feel comfortable taking the political heat dished out by organizations like MADD (Who earlier this month criticized a New Jersey brewery for having New Jersey Turnpike exits themed microbrews) more academics, scientists and public officials will come out in support of a new solution. At a certain point, we will hit a tipping point and finally be able to move into an effective public policy discussion that will finally help keep both our roads and American youth safe.

Sources & Reading:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/07/underage-drinking.html

Jon Corzine selects Lieutenant Governor Nomination

2009-07-28T18:31:00.001-04:00

Jon Corzine on Friday selected legislative veteran Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) to be his running mate in the first ever gubernatorial election that features a running mate. Republican candidate Chris Christie made his announcement Monday of last week - the first candidate to do so.

Senator Weinberg, 74, has been in the state legislature for nearly 20 years. She started her tenure in the Assembly in 1991 and in 2005 was elected to the state senate.

Sen. Weinberg’s legendary, and widely recognized, experience as a reformer and a proponent of open government is considered to be one of the primary reasons that Corzine has selected her - and doing so just one day after a massive corruption scandal rocked the Garden State. Additionally, Senator Weinberg hails from Bergen County, a key swing county.

Throughout her career in Bergen County, Sen. Weinberg has battled what many consider to have been one of the most corrupt political machines in the state. A real New Jersey legislative legend, Weinberg is also the primary sponsor of 50 laws that are on the books, in addition to being a co-sponsor on another 40 current laws, an astounding record.

It will be interesting to see how the next round of polls places the candidates now that both Christie and Corzine have named a running-mate.

NJ Politicians, NY Rabbis rounded up as part of corruption ring

2009-07-23T18:13:00.003-04:00

Today, federal authorities rounded up a host of public officials and rabbis - 44 in total - who are apparently linked to a ring of money laundering and dirty political contributions.

At a press conference today, federal authorities, including officials from the US Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations Division said that New Jersey needed to clean up its act, and that the Garden State may be the worst in the country in terms of political corruption.

As election season kicks into high gear for the governor’s race, in addition to many other state and municipal races, some felt as though the arrests were politically motivated. Federal authorities did state multiple times at a press conference today that politics had nothing to do with the arrests as this case, code named “Bid-rig,” has been developing for nearly a decade, and surpasses political parties and multiple administrations.

Corruption in public office seems so embedded in the governance process that it seems to barely register on the psyche of our state. These actions must not be tolerated, and both public leaders and New Jersey voters must take a stand for more transparent and honest governance. Federal authorities were right on when they said that law enforcement along cannot fix this issue alone, but rather we need a mental overhaul of how, as residents, we want our state to run and how open and transparent we must require our government to be.

More Reading
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/nyregion/24jersey.html
http://sbk.online.wsj.com/article/SB124835404608875685.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iK4nrZ7GALyorz4G34gTnFocFM9gD99KCVB80
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/23/new-jersey-curruption-solomon-dwek-business-beltway-dwek.html
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20090723_N_J__official_resigns_amid_corruption_probe.html

Christie, in a First, Picks a Running Mate (Featured in NY Times)

2009-07-21T16:50:00.001-04:00

Some ask how important new media will be in politics. Today should answer that question once and for all, as Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie announced his pick for lieutenant governor on social networking sites, placing a video on YouTube as well as announcements on Twitter and Facebook.

Mr. Christie, a former United States prosecutor, selected Kim Guadagno, who currently is the Monmouth County Sheriff, to run with him. If elected, she will serve as the state’s first lieutenant governor.

Before 2005, the year that the position was created by a statewide vote — with much encouragement from then-Acting Gov. Dick Codey, who had to step in after Gov. Jim McGreevey resigned — New Jersey was one of a handful of states with only a governor position. In addition, our state’s governor appoints all cabinet level officials, many of which are elected in other states, contributing to the New Jersey governor widely being recognized as perhaps the most powerful in the country.

The new position of lieutenant governor will help equalize the vast amount of authority that currently is placed solely in our only state-wide elected official.

Ms. Guadagno , who has been the Monmouth County Sheriff since 2007, served 15 years as the commissioner of Monmouth Beach, as well as on the Board of Adjustments. Ms. Guadagno also spent 15 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, working both in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

Both Mr. Christie and Ms. Guadagno are long-time residents of the state — he was born in Newark, grew up in Livingston and now resides with his family in Mendham. Ms. Guadagno has lived and worked in New Jersey for many years, and now lives in Monmouth Beach.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who is seeking election to a second term, has not made an official announcement as to his selection, though he is reported to be considering Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, Senator Loretta Weinberg and Rhodes Scholar and winner of Season 4 of “The Apprentice,” Randal Pinkett.

Already a heated battle, with candidates mainly clashing over financial policy issues, the race between Mr. Corzine, Mr. Christie and independent candidate Chris Daggett should be historic, the first featuring a “running-mate.”

Stay tuned for more news on the local angles to the race.

Please feel free to visit the New York Times local section, where this blog entry was featured yesterday: http://maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/christie-in-a-first-picks-a-running-mate/

Medical Amnesty Policies Gaining Ground Nationally!

2009-07-17T17:15:00.009-04:00

Every year, 1,800 college students die in accidents (off the road) involving alcohol. And what are schools doing to combat this rising problem? Some schools are "cracking down" on underage drinking, claiming that enforcing existing laws is all that needs to be done to fix the solution. However, some college presidents and administrations have taken a more thoughtful approach to ensuring their students stay safe: Medical Amnesty.

Medical amnesty policies grant students who call emergency service (campus police, EMTs, etc) for a medical emergency where people were consuming alcohol (whether that led to the emergency or not) and are under 21 immunity from punishment, in an effort to ensure a student never goes without calling for help.

The majority of college students report being less likely to call for help because of a fear of getting in trouble. Primary research we did when I was chair of the Public Health & Safety at Hampshire College (which contributed to eventual adoption of a medical amnesty policy at Hampshire) did show that students were significantly less likely to call for help if alcohol (or illegal drugs) are involved.

A recent story from ABC has more about this, please take a moment to read the story below!

It's Official - Tap Water Safer Than Bottled Water

2009-07-17T11:11:00.006-04:00

The large transportation costs and plastic usage of bottled water has long upset environmentalists who see a lot of wasted energy going into a product that is available throughout the country through your tap. To add to the seemingly large array of problems related to bottled water, Consumer Reports recently concluded that tap water is indeed safer to drink than bottled water.

In a Consumer Reports article from July 10th called "Is tap water safer than bottled?" they seem to answer that question in the affirmative: Yes, it is.

Bottled water, regulated under the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act has less stringent quality standards than tap water, which is regulated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The EPA has more restrictions as to the amount of particulate matter that can be present in water, and there are a few substances that the EPA regulates that the FDA doesn't have any limits for. Certain bottled waters leech carcinogens into the water as well from the plastics used in the bottle.

When looking at whether to drink bottled or tap water, personally I always choose tap water. In restaurants or any pubic places it's free, taste just the same as most bottled water (double-blind studies show that people are more influenced by either the brand or the price, and cannot actually tell the difference between premium bottled water and tap water), does not have the environmental costs as bottled water, and, it turns out, is actually safer for you. The choice seems pretty simple to me.

Water is becoming a serious world-wide issue as people's access to clean drinking water is in higher demand than it has ever been. Drinking tap water, rather than bottled water, may actually help reduce the energy and environmental costs of ensuring that all people have access to clean, safe drinking water.

Consumer Reports: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/water_safety/

Update to A1360, New Jersey's Medical Amnesty Bill

2009-07-10T15:47:00.003-04:00

NJ Bill A1360 a bill that "Grants immunity to certain underage persons for unlawful possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages" has passed in the Senate 38-0.

Here is the timeline the bill has taken so far: (From the NJ Legislature)

9/22/2008 Introduced, Referred to Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee
3/12/2009 Reported from Assembly Comm. as a Substitute, 2nd Reading
5/21/2009 Passed by the Assembly (77-0-0)
5/21/2009 Received in the Senate without Reference, 2nd Reading
6/25/2009 Substituted for S2748
6/25/2009 Passed Senate (Passed Both Houses) (38-0)

Now, the bill needs to gain the signature of Governor Jon Corzine. I'll post updated as news comes out about that.

Here the sponsors of the bill:
Angelini, Mary Pat as Primary Sponsor
Johnson, Gordon M. as Primary Sponsor
Bramnick, Jon M. as Primary Sponsor
Evans, Elease as Primary Sponsor
Rodriguez, Caridad as Co-Sponsor
O'Scanlon, Declan J., Jr. as Co-Sponsor
Handlin, Amy H. as Co-Sponsor
Rible, David P. as Co-Sponsor
Chivukula, Upendra J. as Co-Sponsor
Diegnan, Patrick J., Jr. as Co-Sponsor
Casagrande, Caroline as Co-Sponsor
Wagner, Connie as Co-Sponsor
Kean, Sean T. as Co-Sponsor
Girgenti, John A. as Co-Sponsor
Van Drew, Jeff as Co-Sponsor
Bateman, Christopher as Co-Sponsor
Turner, Shirley K. as Co-Sponsor

More Information:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/BillView.asp

MADD Lambasts Brewery over New Jersey Themed Beer

2009-07-10T12:39:00.004-04:00

Mothers Against Drunk Driving on Friday criticized a New Jersey Brewery of helping contribute to the drunk driving problem by offering New Jersey themed beer.

Flying Fish Brewery, based in Cherry Hill, NJ, is receiving flak from MADD because of a new line of beers that they recently announced. This line of beers, celebrating New Jersey, will be comprised of many different beers to be released periodically, each one named after an exit on the New Jersey Turnpike. The first brew released "Exit 4" is named after the exit closest to where Flying Fish calls home. Reports the Associated Press, "The next beer, Exit 11 Hoppy American Wheat Ale, is scheduled to start hitting bars and stores in the region on July 15. The intersection of styles is a tribute to Woodbridge's exit, where the Turnpike meets the Garden State Parkway."

However, Mothers Against Drunk Driving is criticizing the brewery for encouraging drunk driving. Mindy Lazar, the executive director of MADD, New Jersey said "The combination of a roadway and advertising for any kind of a beer doesn't make any kind of sense," she continued. "This is almost a mockery."

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority also has responded over concerns that the organization may be seen as endorsing the beer. Flying Fish has since released a disclaimer that no endorsement is implied.

Responding to MADD's concerns, Brewery president Gene Mueller said this not at all true, "The one thing that both of us agree is drinking and driving is never an option," he said. He also commented that they were originally going to base the alcohol content off of the exit number of the beer, but quickly realized that once you get around exit 16 or 17 it would become "dangerous."

Does naming a beer after sentimental or historically significant exits off of a state highway really create any problems? Is it likely that someone will see this beer and feel more comfortable getting behind the wheel of a car after consuming too much of it? Not likely, at all. Rather, this seems to be more of an attack by MADD against alcohol in general.

Since the organization's founding in 1980, MADD has gone through a few eras of leadership. Candice Lightner was the woman who founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (Originally called Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) after her 13 year-old daughter was killed by a hit and run drunk driver who had four previous DUIs, including another hit and run just days earlier. Lightner started MADD to crack down on repeat offenders and provide support for families or friends of people who have met tragedy because of drunk driving accidents. However, just five years later (only one year after MADD lobbied for the 21 year-old drinking age) Lightner left MADD, becoming an outspoken critic accusing MADD of becoming "anti-alcohol". Lighnter said, after leaving MADD, that the organization "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."

Is it possible that MADD has seriously over-reacted to the Flying Fish Brewery's beers, which are meant to celebrate unique history and culture of New Jersey? Most likely, MADD is using anything it can to lobby against alcohol and its enjoyment, whether it be responsible, irresponsible, over 21 or under 21.*

*An interesting fact: MADD does not consider responsible alcohol consumption to literally exist for anyone under the age of 21.

Sources and Reading:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/mothers_against_drunk_driving.html
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TURNPIKE_BEER?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

NJ Gubernatorial Election Update: Chris Daggett, Independent Candidate, Enters the Race

2009-07-07T18:53:00.003-04:00

Today marks the announcement of the candidacy of Chris Daggett for Governor of New Jersey. Daggett today announced that he will be seeking office on an independent ticket, citing that over 50% of registered voters in New Jersey are registered as not affiliated to a political party, and that independent voters outnumber both Democrat and Republican voters by a large margin in the Garden State.

Daggett has just surpassed, by $10,000, the $340,000 raised funds mark to qualify for public election funding. This means that for every dollar that Daggett himself spends, the state will provide $3. Daggett will receive that funding as part of agreeing to some terms, including taking part in official debates.

Daggett believes that neither party has accurately reflected what New Jerseyans want in Trenton and that the political system is broken in its current partisanship.

More information at Chris Daggett's website: http://daggettforgovernor.com/wordpress/

Sources & Reading:
http://daggettforgovernor.com/wordpress/
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/nj_independent_candidate_for_g.html

Describing the Divide

2009-07-06T14:42:00.006-04:00

"Gradually I began to understand how different a place Hamilton had become..."
- Barrett Seaman. Former Time Magazine editor, author of Binge and trustee of Hamilton College.

Drinking has always been a part of college life. Indeed the mere fact that alcohol has been associated with the idea of rebelling is partly what has contributed to it being seen as the root of many problems. The truth is, that as residential colleges started to become more common in the US, problems started to arise. These problems, including violence, sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, destruction of property and other similar 'immature' decisions and behaviors started to become serious problems that campuses have to deal with. Because these young people were able to live some of their youth years away from parental - or really any - oversight, they naturally become, well, more rambunctious than they had been. Alcohol was as much a part of that as anything else, though it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to conclude that alcohol itself (with no distinction as to how its drunk) was the cause. More likely, excessive and abusive alcohol use (which may lead to some of those problems) became the norm on college campuses.

When discussing the problems that college campuses face now, especially in regards to alcohol, I sometimes forget that my college experience is very different than the college experience of many of those whom I'm speaking with, who may have gone to school 30 years ago. (A time when my alma mater was just being built!)

This was brought up to me at my recent lecture/discussion "Rethinking 21" in Lake Luzerne, NY by a friend/audience member, who reminded me that there may be a large discrepancy of how people define campus life and alcohol culture.

Barrett Seaman lays down an very accurate view of modern college life in his book Binge: What Your College Student Won't Tell You. He sums this up well by saying, after spending two weeks living in student housing at Hamilton, "My two-week stay made me realize how very different student life was compared to what I had experienced."

When I speak about the problems of youth alcohol abuse with people older than myself they often share stories about crazy drinking parties when they went to college, yet as Seaman also notes, those events rarely, if ever, led to emergency room visits, stomach pumping or death. Unfortunately, college campuses are too often visited by ambulances, and as a student leader for four years, helping to organize many campus events, the goal is to reduce the number of ambulance visits from the previous year. Off the record, staff and organizers will use the number of ambulance visits on campus during an event to measure an events success. Many larger schools see multiple ambulance visits as inevitable and often specifically reserve ambulances to standby on campus. That didn't used to happen.

Although drinking culture on college campuses has existed for decades, if not more, in the US, the problems facing young people are vastly different than before and require a serious re-examination of the state of our college campuses to fully understand the problems that exist. I'll end with a quote from my thesis, Breaking Taboo:

Some studies may correlate – sometimes very loosely - certain behaviors, but until you’ve been on the wrong end of the drinking age, and are leaving a party of high school students and have actually watched groups of intoxicated kids pull out their cell phones as they drunkenly climb into their cars trying to find the next party so they can drink more, you are missing a critical perspective regarding the drinking age.

Sarah Palin's Resignation as Governor of Alaska

2009-07-06T14:24:00.001-04:00

On Friday, Sarah Palin shocked quite a few people by formally resigning from her position as Governor of Alaska. Citing personal reasons, Palin gave up her position in a similar fashion to her resignation from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) in 2004. When Palin resigned from AOGCC in 2004, the move helped launch her into a larger political spotlight.

Although Palin ran on a populist platform for Governor, and held extremely high approval ratings (generally in the 80s) for the beginning of her tenure as Governor, her popularity took a nosedive after her VP candidacy in the 2008 Presidential election. Democrats accused her of no longer working with them, and Republicans felt as alienated as well. Palin's approval ratings after the '08 election dropped into the 50s and never fully recovered.

The best take on why Palin may have done this is from TIME:

1) This resignation is a mirror of her move in 2004 with AOGCC
2) She no longer has bi-partisan support
3) She has introduced almost no bills, and only one made it to becoming law
4) Her national publicity has waned since the election, and this is to remind America of Sarah Palin
5) The enormous cost of defending herself against ethics violations is not worth being in office for.

Follow up below to read TIME's full article.

Sources & Reading
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1908800-2,00.html
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/07/06/republicans-perplexed-by-palins-resignation.html
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/07/06/1987086.aspx

Re-evaluating the drinking age @ WhiteHouse2.org

2009-07-01T18:27:00.002-04:00

WhiteHouse2.org is....

Hollywood has the box office charts, television has the Nielsen's, college basketball has the ESPN/USA Today poll. Why don't we track our nation's priorities as closely?

White House 2 lets you set your own priorities for the United States. You'll get your own page, which you can send to friends and colleagues urging them to sign on to support your priorities.

The more people you encourage to endorse your priorities, the higher those priorities will rise on the site. And the more people who join the network, the more clout we will have with the President and the media to make our agenda happen.
(Source: Whitehouse2.org)

Head on over to the WhiteHouse2.org site to endorse asking President Obama to re-evaluate the 21 year-old drinking age.

Personal Democracy Forum 2009 Recap

2009-07-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

Personal Democracy Forum (http://personaldemocracy.com) Wow. Instead of describing each session, as there are plenty of great summaries (search Twitter for #pdf09) I just wanted to note some thoughts:

Nate Silver brought up an interesting point in regards to the tea parties. Though he wasn't endorsing the content of those events, he certainly was impressed, and rightly so, at conservative organizing. He pointed out how it is in general more difficult for republicans to organize the way democrats do because they tend to live in rural areas - an interesting point that I hadn't thought about.

Blair Levin talked a bunch about how the FCC is changing to provide more access and accountability.

Vivek Kundra, the US Chief Information Officer presented the new federal IT Dashboard - a way to get information about money, investments, projects, budgets, contracts out to the American people. Really breakthrough concept & design - it.usaspending.gov.

Alex Ross, from the US State Dept., commenting on political organizing, said how drastic this culture is changing. No longer do you necessarily need a charismatic person who looks great on camera, etc. When organizing via Facebook or twitter, none of that really matters. This is interesting, as it is similar to much of what was talked about that seems as though technology is flattening the playing field of politics and political organizing.

The New York Senate Chief Information Officer presented the re-design of nysenate.gov, which is based on free, open-source software. This is a huge step, and hopefully an example for other state legislatures.

Overall, technology is going to be changing politics in ways that even now we literally can't imagine. So much happens so fast, and we are at the base of an exponential curve of improvement in tech. Looking even just at the role that Twitter has played recently in Iran, one must wonder what new platforms and technologies will be develop, even in the next few years, and how those new developments will impact government, politics and democracy.

Here is a list of the sessions/people I saw speak:

Opening Welcome, Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry

Did Obama Revolutionize Campaigning? A Conversation with Joe Rospars (Obama '08) and Mark McKinnon (McCain '08)

Keynote speech on how technology is improving government by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Reality Check: The Internet's Impact on Politics: A Conversation With Nate Silver, Fivethirtyeight.com

Powering the Youth Vote. Maria-Teresa Kumar of VotoLatino; Greg Miller of the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation; and Mike Connery of Future Majority

Mobile Politicking: From Text-Messaging Basics to Campaign iPhone Apps: Scott Goodstein, CEO - Revolution Messaging, LLC and External Online Director for Obama for America; Becky Bond, Political Director at CREDO Mobile and Working Assets; Nicola Wells, Organizer for FIRM, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement; Beka Economopoulos, Fission Strategy

PoliTech Demos: Tristan Harris of Apture, Stan Magniant of Linkfluence, Abby Kirigin of TipJoy

The Obama Broadband Initiative and the Future of the Internet: Opening Remarks by Blair Levin, FCC; Discussion with Josh Silver, Founder of Free Media; James Assey, Executive Vice President of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association; Hank Hultquist, Vice President, Federal Regulatory, AT&T Andrew Rasiej (moderator)

Innovation in Government, Obama-Style: Conversations With and Vivek Kundra, US Chief Information Officer; and Macon Phillips, White House New Media Drirector; introduced by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

Chairman Steele said, “Take the lid off”: The New GOP Web Presence, Todd Herman, new media director for the Republican National Committee

Social Networks and Social Revolutions, Randi Zuckerberg, marketing director at Facebook

21st Century Statecraft: Fostering Citizen-Centered Diplomacy and Development, Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture and the Politics of Authenticity, Michael Wesch, Professor at Kansas State University

The Dangerous Power of Sharing (Power), Mark Pesce, Inventer, writer

Mapping the Networked Public Sphere: How Blogs, Mainstream Media and Official Sources Interact: Ken Deutsch, Director of Strategic Services and Partnerships at Morningside Analytics; Stan Magniant, Vice President & General Manager of Linkfluence Vincent Ducrey, French Government new media director; Michael Cornfield, Vice President for Research and Media Strategy at 720 Strategies

PoliTech Demos: Andrew Hoppin, the CIO of NYSenate.gov, David Moore of OpenCongress, Benjamin Stein of MobileCommons and Tristan Harris of Apture

Final Plenary: Can We.gov? How? A Conversation With Rep. Steve Israel, (D-NY) Jack Dorsey, Creator, Chairman and co-founder of Twitter, Ellen Miller, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation and Joe Trippi, Democratic Campaign Strategist.

NJ Gubernatorial Election Update: Corzine Restores Property Tax Rebates

2009-06-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

New Jersey's tax amnesty program - a 45-day time period where New Jersey taxpayers could repay back owed taxes without penalty and only pay half of the interest - was originally expected to generate approximately $100 million that the state could use to help this year's budget. They were wrong.

The tax amnesty program has generated over $625 million (as of the 20th, with many envelopes still not counted) in revenue for the state. This unexpected massive generation of funds has been put to good use - direct relief for taxpayers.

Governor Corzine, who previously was not planning on distributing property tax rebates because of the state's financial situation (except for seniors and the disabled), now has said that all homeowners who make under $75,000 a year, senior citizens and disabled residents will receive a rebate, and homeowners who make up to $250,000 will be be able to apply for a rebate.

The number one issue in this election is taxes. And surprisingly, Republican candidate Chris Christie, who has blamed the current economic downturn on Corzine and been extremely critical of his tax policy (among others). And now, only a few months before the election Corzine will sign tens of thousands property tax rebate checks off to New Jersey residents. Although campaign spending has been fairly equal in the early part of the election, Christie is going to have to do a lot of work and advertising to not loose at least a few points in the polls because of this. Perhaps he'll even create a tax plan of his own.

Sources & Reading
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/gov_corzine_christie_spend_sim.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/gov_corzine_says_tax_amnesty_w.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/top_nj_democrats_hope_to_resto.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/nyregion/19njbudget.html?ref=nyregion
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=ACBJ&date=20090622&id=10043310

NJ Gubernatorial Election Update: Barack Obama Fully Endorses Jon Corzine

2009-06-25T11:27:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month Vice President Joe Biden joined Jon Corzine in West Orange to kick-off Corzine's 2009 campaign. On stage together, both men talked much of working together and using a positive and friendly relationship that exists between Governor Corzine and the White House. However, some skeptics pointed to the fact that Obama did not himself attend that the White House was not in full support of Corzine's re-election. Although the Vice President made it quite clear that the White House was willing, excited and had already worked with Corzine, President Obama has now made his first public statement regarding the election.

President Obama recently said, "I don't think it's surprising that he may have a significant challenge because that's, first of all, the nature of New Jersey politics," Continuing Obama remarked, "And, secondly, because a huge chunk of New Jersey's economy was tied to Wall Street and, obviously, you've seen a huge hit in terms of the financial sector of the economy, which has an impact across the board on revenue, state revenues, unemployment rates, so forth." Although admitting the challenge that lies ahead for Corzine, Obama made it clear he is confident in Corzine, commenting, "I think very highly of Jon Corzine. I think he's a terrific public servant..." He continued, "I'm confident that he can win re-election."

With the White House fully and publicly supporting Corzine, it will be interesting to see how and if New Jersey voters respond. Recent polls show Corzine trailing by up to 10%, but Obama, who enjoys a 70% approval rating in New Jersey, may be able to help convince New Jersey that Corzine is the right man for the job. Additionally, the idea that our Governor now will be able to work with the White House, a stark contrast to the past administration, is a bright prospect for New Jersey to continue to the lead the country in creating effective and socially responsible policy.

Sources & Reading
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/president_barack_obama_says_he.html
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/25/1977107.aspx

NJ Gubernatorial Election Update: Christie's Attacks on Corzine's Management of Economy Off-Base

2009-06-19T19:43:00.000-04:00

Lately, Republic gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie has been lambasting current Governor Jon Corzine's leadership of the economy, using the high levels of unemployment as "proof" Corzine has failed New Jersey. Not so, says recently released numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Christie claims that it is Corzine's mismanagement of New Jersey's finances that have led to the current unemployment rate. However, one need only glance at the news any day to know that nationally, indeed globally, unemployment is reaching double digits in places that haven't seen such numbers in decades.

When it comes to New Jersey, which has a current unemployment rate of 8.8%, the Great State falls below the national average, which is at around 10%. Additionally, New Jersey is faring better than most states in terms of its current budget deficit and percentage change of foreclosures compared to years past. Corzine repeated this message at the Employer Legislative Committee Dinner on Tuesday saying, "Facts are stubborn things."

Yes, we can all agree the economy is not in a great place, but this is a world-wide issue, not solely a New Jersey issue. The fact that Christie, along with a few other New Jersey Republicans, actually wanted to refuse about 17.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money does not inspire confidence that they posses the skills and commitment to see our state through recovery.

In terms of looking forward, and how best to help New Jersey climb out of this economic downturn, Jon Corzine is unarguably a financial expert. New Jersey is beginning shovel-ready projects, and putting New Jersey residents to work in building for our state. Would these same projects be happening under a different governor? Perhaps. It's hard to tell exactly what is Corzine's unique ability, and it is easy for Christie to be critical from the sidelines. Joe Biden said it best, however. At Corzine's campaign kickoff earlier this month Biden said, "Do you know who I called first when Barack and I sat down to write the US economic recovery package? I called Jon Corzine."

Considering Christie's lack of enthusiasm for literally taking money from the federal government, I don't believe he will be able to forge a successful relationship with the White House, which could potentially have large implications for our financial situation. But with a federal administration that has a better understanding of economic policy than our most recent past administration, I do enjoy the commitment between our Democratic governor and Democratic federal administration who have promised, and have already been shown, to work together to help not only New Jersey, but set the pace for the US to recover as well.

Sources & Reading:
http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/30647/christie-and-corzine-give-dueling-speeches
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/gapmap/index.htm
http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13107814

The Problem Is Getting Worse

2009-06-15T22:33:00.000-04:00

When talking about the problems associated with youth alcohol abuse, many consider the problem getting worse, which may in fact point the current philosophies and policies being fundamentally misguided.

Today, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (Part of the National Institute of Health) released a study which describes the increasingly severe problem of youth alcohol abuse. Some quick stats:

Number of alcohol-related accidental deaths
1998: 1,440
2005: 1.825

Percentage of 18-24 year-olds who report drinking and driving
1998: 26.5
2005: 29

Percentage of 18-24 year-olds engaging in heavy and episodic drinking practices
1998: 42
2005: 45

Each of these statistics independently would be more than cause for alarm. However, all three? Not to mention the countless more statistics that have recently been reported: The number of drunk driving incidents is on the rise, the age that people start drinking is getting younger, and the ratio of excessive drinking practices to responsible drinking practices is increasing.

Is the drinking age effective? Maybe our more basic, underlying assumptions were false to begin with. Looking at how best to reduce the problems and harm associated with heavy drinking by people at all ages, and especially young people, requires more than "How can we enforce the drinking age better?" To really provide effective policy, we need to ask "Is the 21 year-old drinking age based on true and effective policy foundations?" We need rethink our initial assumption - we need to "rethink 21."

Study:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/joso-cdp061009.php

Edit: Additional Article:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/16/alcohol

NJ Gubernatorial Election Update: How conservative is Chris Christie? And how conservative is New Jersey?

2009-06-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

Post-primary election activity is heating up and democrats have ratcheted up their criticism of Republican opponent Chris Christie. And Chris Christie is doing nothing to avoid it.

On the evening of June 11th, gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (who was appointed by George W. Bush) held a fundraiser, featuring, as the main headliner, former presidential candidate Mit Romney. In a state where Democratic president Barack Obama has a 70% approval rating - a full 10% over the national average - one must wonder why Christie, so soon, would align himself with such a conservative figure.

Romney's social policies are truly conservative, and not particularly in line with how more progressive New Jerseyan's tend to feel about social issues. A day after Christie's fundraiser, US Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside park) said, according Politcker NJ, "Chris Christie is kicking off his (general election) campaign with a conservative Republican whose extreme right-wing positions couldn't be more out of touch with New Jersey residents." Two days earlier, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) made similar comments, noting that Christie is far too conservative and is aligning himself with national conservative figures who are often seen as far more right-wing than New Jersey is.

Is Chris Christie purposefully aligning himself with national, though well-known, political figures hoping for what comedy political commentator Stephen Colbert refers to (when he is the endorser) as the "Colbert Bump," or is Chris Christie genuinely too conservative for New Jersey? Although democratic incumbent Jon Corzine has not been advertising for as long as Christie, the Republican is up by 10 points in recent polls. This suggests that the only way we will answer who is the right person for New Jersey is on November 4th. However, as new developments occur, and new poll numbers are released, it will be interesting to see how effective each candidate's advertising campaign is in reaching New Jersey voters that certainly aren't conservative but, on the other hand, frustrated with the financial situation the state is in.

Sources & Reading
http://www.politickernj.com/max/30575/lautenberg-throws-christie-and-romney-bush-bundle
http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/30506/mendnez-and-pascrell-paint-christie-red

New Jersey Close to Adopting Medical Amnesty

2009-06-13T13:14:00.001-04:00

On May 21, 2009, the New Jersey Assembly unanimously passed a bill that would grant a degree of legal immunity to persons under the age of 21 who have been consuming alcohol and call emergency services for medical assistance. A noble step forward in working to reduce the damage the 21 year-old drinking causes, especially for Americans under the age of 21.

Studies consistently show that young people are dissuaded from contacting authorities in a medical emergency if alcohol has been present and the people involved are not of legal age (Lewis and Marchell 2006). On college campuses, especially, this creates a dangerous situation where thousands of serious medical emergencies go un-reported as young people try to deal with the problem without any help from authorities. Oftentimes students will try to "sleep off" heavy intoxication instead of getting help, a circumstance that usually ends in the person slipping into a coma in their sleep or asphyxiating on their own vomit overnight. Because of the amount drinking that takes place among American youth (the amount of excessive drinking practices has risen steadily since the drinking age was instituted in 1984), and the, as it turns out, logical shunning of authority when an emergency exists, there are approximately 1,700 deaths per among college-aged students related to alcohol each year (NIAAA, Hingson et al, 2005). These deaths are almost entirely preventable.

Some campuses have been realizing that these deaths are preventable, and that the cause is a culture and legal system that disincentives young people from seeking help. Medical Amnesty policies (also referred to as good Samaritan or non-retaliation agreements) have been adopted at many campuses around the country including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Tulane, UPenn, Smith and my recent Alma Mater, Hampshire College. These policies have one goal: Ensuring that no matter the circumstances, students will always reach out for help when they need it.

New Jersey has grappled with recent deaths on some of its own college campuses related to alcohol, and, as of now, the General Assembly has taken a proactive and effective step at limiting the harm from the underground culture that has been created from the drinking age.

Medical Amnesty policies, are, however, not the final solution. To entirely eliminate the underground, clandestine, dangerous and irresponsible drinking that takes place across the country we, as both a state and a nation, need to rethink some of our most basic pre-conceptions about alcohol regulation. That is a challenging task, and it is heartening to know that New Jersey legislators realize this and are taking steps right now to protect and keep safe the state's young people.

The Bill:
A3160. Currently in second reading and awaiting approval from the Senate.
Sources:
- Lewis, Deborah K., Marchell Timothy C. 2006. Safety first: A medical
amnesty approach to alcohol poisoning at a U.S. university.
International journal of drug policy.
- Hingson, R. et al. Magnitude of Alcohol-Related Mortality and Morbidity Among U.S. College Students Ages 18-24: Changes from 1998 to 2001. Annual Review of Public Health, vol. 26, 259-79; 2005
Further Reading:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/BillView.asp
http://www.politickernj.com/mysak/29968/angelini-911-legislation-receives-general-assembly-approval
http://www.gannett.cornell.edu/downloads/campusIniatives/AOD/Safety1stcornellMedamnesty.pdf