I have many mixed feelings on this election. It is difficult to get ones mind around the situation after having been bombarded by the media coverage. You have to pry your brain away from the superficial frame that measures whether it has gone good or bad by the amount of violence and the number of people actually voting. My first impulse was to think “Iraqis are participating in a democratic process, that’s good right, I mean who could argue with that? I hope that everything turns out well because the Iraqis have certainly dealt with enough trouble. Bush is using it to make himself look good but he does that with everything.”

It’s difficult to even come up with a critical question to ask after watching the events unfold in the popular media. This is why one must look for alternative sources of information, at the very least it snaps your brain away long enough to start coming up with a more complex understanding of the situation. It’s not always this difficult to see world affairs through a critical lens, but I had a hard time coming to grips with the Iraqi election.

I had to backup and think, what are we trying to achieve, and what are the Iraqis trying to achieve. Really the beliefs of the Iraqis are the most important, we can say we’re spreading democracy till we’re blue in the face, but Iraqis determine what actually happens. So I went looking for an Iraqi perspective. Robert Fisk is covering the story for the UK Independent, he was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and he made some interesting observations.

One is that the Sunni Muslim minority that had been in power for a long time barely participated. They make up about 20% of the population, they have the most to lose, and they’re the main force behind the insurgency, but they didn’t vote. So the insurgents didn’t really give democracy a chance to solve their problems. If they aren’t using peaceful means like voting probably they won’t start reducing attacks any time soon.

The second thing that really struck me was the aims of those who did vote. Below is a paraphrase of what Fisk said about the Shiites who were voting.

“The Shiites were not voting for democracy, although they’d very much like to have it and believe in it, many of them expressed their views very forthrightly inside the polling station, 'we’re coming to vote because Al Sistani told us too, because we weren’t allowed to do so before, and because we want the Americans to leave.' Now it’s all very well for the American media to say that they came to vote for democracy, they probably did, but they also came because they think and believe and are convinced of the fact that by voting they will have a free country without an occupation force.”

That’s the key to this whole situation, the success of this election should be judged by whether or not it leads immediately to a change in the lives of everyday people in Iraq. The people of Iraq want the Americans to leave, the Shiites have decided to try peaceful means and vote just like we told them to. They expect things to change, and they expect the occupation to end, and America has less time to fulfill that demand than we would hope. If they see no change and they begin to feel betrayed, what will happen then? JFK explained it best when he said "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

If America does not take this election seriously, and if we do not actively show those in Iraq that peaceful means of change are effective, then this election will go very badly, because more groups will join in the violence. Bush is using this election as a prop to show the American people that we are making progress in Iraq, it is not difficult to convince the American people because we experience things from a safe distance through popular media channels, the difficult task is to show Iraqis. I hope that this is a milestone for Iraq, it can be the point at which peaceful means of change are finally taken seriously.

# # #

An online community provides a way for people to interact by remote. Unlike the telephone where only a few people can communicate at a time, and where you are restricted to the using and sharing of sounds, an online community allows many kinds of communication and interaction. One can share sound, text and video, and also use these mediums to communicate with others in the community.

The way I understand an online community it can include anything from discussion boards, to file sharing networks, to open listservs where all members can add their comments. The key ingredient of an online community is conversation and conscious interaction. Under this definition I have been a member of a few online communities, most of them are listservs, one was based around a discussion board and another was a file-sharing community. However I would consider the discussion board based community to be the best example of an online community. This community was called The Fredonia Underground it was created by a Fredonia student, and membership was restricted to those with a Fredonia based e-mail address, not including teachers. It had many features including the discussion board, a place to post upcoming events on the home page, and a database where students could record their opinions of teachers and others could look them up by the teachers department and name. Members could also create profiles including a few pictures, a list of their friends on the Underground and some personal information including their class standing and major etc. part of the fun of the community was that it was attached to the actual Fredonia community, you could learn something about the people you saw on campus by using the Fredonia Underground website, but you also met people you may not have seen through discussing your shared interests on the discussion board.

Through my experiences with this community I could relate to some of the things Rheingold mentioned. At some point someone posted a thread on the discussion board called “Underground Meetup” in which they suggested getting together in person. The plans were worked out and when the gathering happened there was about 25-30 people in attendance. I only stopped by for about 10 minutes but I can imagine that some deeper understandings and friendships grew out of that meeting that may have developed similar to those Rheingold mentioned with his parenting group. Also at one point a student on campus was killed in a car accident, his girlfriend was an active member of the Underground and she shared her story, and received the comfort of many in the community.

I can also relate to his being addicted to the community. If you are participating in a very interesting conversation you find yourself checking for activity on the site frequently. And there is a feature where you can see who’s online and how long they have been on, some would be online and active for hours at a time, personally I never became quite that interested.

I am comfortable being a member of an online community, though not sure how much of myself I’d like to make available for the world. Some people I know such as my younger cousin, have Live Journal accounts that they update every day, and in their entries they pour out all of their experiences and what they are feeling. I would not be comfortable putting so much of myself on display. However as in my experience with the Underground as I get to know the community better I become more willing to post my more controversial opinions. But the community was based around the Discussion board, it was not really a place like a Live Journal or a Blog where one could go into elaborate detail about their daily lives. But I enjoy online communities and I think they provide a good way for people to communicate with each other.

Outer Harbor Development is Exciting, but Plans Fall Short

Refferances

NFTA’s RFQ to Solicit Developers City Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan Outer Harbor Development NFTA Site Governor Article on Outer Harbor Project NFTA Article at release of RFQ Article on Release of the RFQ FBNR Plan Buffalo Audubon’s comments FBNR Letter of Concern ERIE County Parks System Master Plan NFTA Outer Harbor Projects

Links

City Waterfront Resource BuffaloWaterfront.com Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers

by: David Coffee

Almost anybody familiar with Buffalo will agree that utilizing the waterfront is one of the most important tasks facing our city. Buffalo was born because of this unique waterfront, and our future will certainly be shaped by developments there.

Currently the NFTA and the city of Buffalo are working on plans for developing 120 acres of the Outer Harbor. Obviously such an enormous project must be undertaken very carefully, and the interests of the public must be seriously considered, however this is not what is happening today.

It must be noted that the effort to redevelop Buffalo’s waterfront has been proceeding rather well, and until now the project certainly hasn’t been rushed. In 2002 the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation finished its long awaited assessment of the Outer Harbor site, which opened the property to development.

From 2002 the process has proceeded cautiously and responsibly. Time was taken to conduct a Market Study, a public conference was held, projects were started throughout the waterfront, and then a formal Request For Qualifications was composed and released for potential Outer Harbor developers.

However once the developers submitted their proposals to the NFTA they were rushed by the public in the height of this Holiday season. On Saturday December 11 the proposals were released at a public meeting, the only public discussion of the proposals to date. Comments were accepted until January 10, and a week later the frontrunner of the three development teams was announced. The entire process lasted little over a month.

So what’s the hurry? We know that projects in the past have been delayed so long that they end up failing, and nobody wants to see that happen here, but this is the drafting of the final plan, this is where we decide what is actually going to happen on the ground. If anything this is the step that should be conducted most thoroughly.

Our public officials seem very eager get the developers onboard. They may have gotten a little worried about the project when only four plans were submitted for formal review, one of which dropped out early.

They also seem unconcerned that many aspects of the plans submitted conflict with the original goals of the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.

Another problem is that all proposals involve digging new canals through the contaminated brownfield site. Canals certainly were not recommended by the DEC, which stressed keeping the site isolated from the water table, avoiding inhalation of the soil, and even said that basements would not be possible for structures on the site.

There is also little attention paid to the fact that the property is on the great lakes. Aside from the new canals and boat slips that will end up competing with the Small Boat Harbor, the water around the site serves mostly to elevate the property value.

Looking on the bright side, the favored Lakefront Development Team is definitely the best choice. Though their plan must be redesigned it demonstrates that they understand many things about Buffalo.

They have included a large outdoor amphitheatre, evidently understanding that Buffalo loves music, art and festivals. There is also a convention center on their site, though this is not a good place for a new convention center it indicates that they were thinking about Buffalo’s unique needs in their design. Their plan is also the only one to include a public beach, arguably the only element of any of the proposals that cannot be simply relocated to another part of the city.

We’ve found a good developer, but we are still searching for a good design. In that search it would be wise to pay attention to the outline provided by The Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers, it’s not a proposal but an outline that is vague enough to allow the developer some creativity but specific enough to keep the project within the limits of the region’s previously stated and thoughtfully researched goals.

If the Lakefront Development Team abandoned some of the unnecessary gimmicks in its plan like the amusement park and sports complex which will only distract from similar attractions in the area, and the convention center which would be better put by HSBC Arena. And if they abandoned the idea of digging canals in exchange for clustering dense development around the existing canals at either end of the site, then we would have a good actionable plan. A hybrid plan, from the Lakefront Development Team and FBNR.

# # #

It is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is happening in Iraq. Most of the news that comes out of that country is censored by our military, the occupiers. Every time you see a picture from Iraq in the news you should remember that some government official looked at that photo and decided it could be shown to America, the same goes for the statements and news stories of embedded journalists operating inside the country.
Uncensored news from Iraq is a raritie and a treasure, so I’m sharing what I’ve found. Dahr Jamail is one of the only independent reporters inside Iraq, he publishes a weblog that is updated daily.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/

other sources can be found here

http://www.fredonia.edu/sa/campusgreens/iniraq.html

I think I'm going to like this Blog idea, it's a lot easier to update than a regular website.
I've been browsing the news and I figured I'd post some of what I'd found on today's protests.

for on the street updates go to Indymedia, this page is being updated consistently
Indymedia

Here's a decent article
Chicago Sun Times

and a bunch of Pictures from Yahoo News
Yahoo Pics

"Michael Lauer, a Capitol Police spokesman, said police made five arrests during Bush's address." Congratulations to Code Pink and others who made it in.

What a young blog we have. Just waiting for the excitement to begin!