Archive for category rants
Doctorow on the politics of technology choices
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in Advocacy 2.0, Drupal, nptech, politics, rants on May 4, 2011
One of the nice things about my job is that I get to write blog posts like this. Cross-posted below.
I just read a great piece by author/activist Cory Doctorow on what he calls “Techno-Optimism” in Locus Magazine. He addresses a question that is often confronted by those of us who aspire to somehow use technology as a tool for social change: does the tool matter, or just the results? For example, if it’s easier to reach your target audience of young people who care about software freedom via Facebook, does the end justify the means? Or should we hold ourselves to a more idealistic standard and use an open source tool that lacks the critical mass of users?
In other words:
As a techno-optimist, I was heartened to see the role that networked technologies played in aiding activists in Iran, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and other middle-eastern autocracies to coordinate with one another. But as a techno-pessimist, I was horrified to see activists making use of unsecured unfit systems like Facebook, which make it trivial for authorities to snoop on and unpick the structure of activist organizations.
Doctorow concludes:
The trick for technology activists is to help activists who use technology to appreciate the hidden risks and help them find or make better tools. That is, to be pessimists and optimists: without expert collaboration, activists might put themselves at risk with poor technology choices; with collaboration, activists can use technology to outmaneuver autocrats, totalitarians, and thugs.
As I like to say: the path IS the destination. How you get there is every bit as important as where you go. I already use a lot of open source software such as Drupal (this site’s platform), Firefox and Thunderbird (which I couldn’t work without), and Ubuntu (on my personal computers at home). I’m going to redouble my efforts to support software and systems that themselves support my own (and HASTAC’s) values of freedom, democracy, and security.
Read the full article at http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2011/05/cory-doctorow-techno-optimism/
Bye bye, Bubbie
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in personal, rants on April 17, 2011
When my mother’s family gathered in Austin at the end of last year, my son Izzy was re-introduced to his great-grandmother. (He couldn’t talk yet the first time he met her.) “Izzy, this is Bubbie.”
“Bubba!” he responded. We thought that was an appropriate nickname for my vivacious grandmother who moved from Long Island to Texas in her late 80′s. She moved to be near one of her daughters, and got a bonus in the shape of her other great-grandchild Abby, who was born in Austin few months after Izzy was born here in Chapel Hill. Grandma Vickie established her painting studio in the garage of her new home (it was in the attic when she lived in New York) and even resumed teaching oil painting lessons as she had done for decades.
This week, she was felled by an infection that her 91-year-old immune system just couldn’t beat. My grandmother was a fabulous woman, and she loved to entertain. Here are pictures of her after I was born in 1971, and dancing at my wedding in 2006. A longer slideshow is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/vickierakoff/show/.
Ignite NTC
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in Advocacy 2.0, Networks, nptech, rants on March 17, 2011
I’ve very excited to be giving an Ignite talk at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference tonight!
Truck!
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in Izzy, rants on March 14, 2011
It’s hard to underestimate how much my son loves trucks. I’m working hard to raise a good feminist child, not a stereotype, but it’s hard to argue with this:
Getting my geek on. #mythtv
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in rants on March 11, 2011
Even more sure what’s wrong but no progress in fixing it. 
Thank you, Elizabeth
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in Edwards, rants on December 9, 2010
Here’s a post I recently published on my local politics blog about Elizabeth Edwards…
Elizabeth Edwards passed away this week and is being warmly remembered from all corners. Many people talk about her great heart and the strength of her resilience, and it’s true that she was an incredible model for anyone dealing with personal pain.
But I remember her best for being whip smart and unbelievably charming. I met her once, and she was even more brilliant and impressive in person. Her death is a huge loss for Chapel Hill, for North Carolina, and for the whole country that has been a beneficiary of her health care activism in recent years.
For those who haven’t been reading OP forever, here’s the comment she posted here in 2005 after the Edwards’ moved to Orange County. And below is the text of a 2006 OP post called “Elizabeth Edwards, keeping it real.”
I swear Rosemary and I didn’t plan this, but I just read and wanted to post about this article by my friend Micah Sifry about Elizabeth Edwards. He says she is the “only person who I think we can genuinely say is participating in the blogosphere, as opposed to just using it.” One of his supporting examples is Eliabeth’s visit to OP to answer some questions I had raised about the location of their new home and the status of their voter registration.
As usual, she responded openly and directly. As I wrote to Micah, Elizabeth is so smart and fierce and charming it’s scary. Further proof was seen in her graceful handling of that clown Chris Matthews on live TV recently. I sometimes have complaints about her husband’s policies (the same I have of almost every Democrat), but as a person I only admire her more the more I get to know her. I wish nothing but the best to the entire Edwards family.
Thank you for sharing part of your life with us, Elizabeth. You made the world a better place by sharing yourself with us.
Happy Hanukkah, y’all!
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in rants on December 2, 2010
Here’s some music to get you in the mood: http://www.last.fm/listen/globaltags/hanukkah
You need to know: The Powell Memo
Posted by Ruby Sinreich in rants on November 5, 2010
I was talking recently with a very learned and progressive scholar of history about the depth of the right wing’s messaging strategy, and he was unfamiliar with this document that helped create and define a broad and effective corporate-conservative machine: the Powell Memorandum. We all need to know this history.
From Wikipedia:
Based in part on his experiences as a corporate lawyer and as a representative for the tobacco industry with the Virginia legislature, [Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.] wrote the Powell Memo to a friend at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding politics and law in the U.S. and may have sparked the formation of one or more influential right-wing think tanks.
In August 1971, prior to accepting Nixon’s request to become Associate Justice of Supreme Court, Lewis Powell had sent to the leadership of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the “Confidential Memorandum”, better known as the Powell Memorandum, and still under the radar of general public. It sounded an alarm with its title, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System.” The previous decade had seen the increasing regulation of many industries. Powell argued, “The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism came from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” In the memorandum, Powell advocated “constant surveillance” of textbook and television content, as well as a purge of left-wing elements.
In an extraordinary prefiguring of the social goals of business that would be felt over the next three decades, Powell set his main goal: changing how individuals and society think about the corporation, the government, the law, the culture, and the individual. Shaping public opinion on these topics became, and would remain, a major goal of business.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.#The_Powell_Memorandum
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Welcome
Welcome to the online home of Ruby Sinreich. I'm a progressive activist, local politico, online organizer, and social network addict. I wrangle Drupal and new media at HASTAC.org, blog about local issues at OrangePolitics.org, watch my family grow at BrianAndRuby.org, and tweet about everything including nonprofit technology, politics, basketball, and motherhood as @Ruby.