Via Johnnie, comes a sweet elucidation from David Weinberger about the creeping relgion of “accountabalism:” The Folly of Accountabalism Accountability has gone horribly wrong. It has become “accountabalism,” the practice of eating sacrificial victims in an attempt to magically ward off evil. The emphasis on accountability was an understandable response to some god-awful bookkeeping-based scandals. But the notion would never have evolved from a buzzword into the focus of voluminous legislation if we hadn’t also been lured by the myth of precision: Because accountability suggests that there is a right and a wrong answer to every question, it flourishes where …
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The truth, from a site that excels in getting it right: indexed. Props to Dave Snowdon for the link
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Several people on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation list have been noticing the line taken by US Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton regarding engaging in dialogue with Americans. Both candidates have launched their campaings with a promise to engage Americans in conversations to learn more about what’s on the collective mind. Obama: For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in …
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Picture a field in which someone has planted wheat. We imagine the harvest from that field to look lkike a farmer using equipment to cut down the wheat, thresh it, and seperate the seeds from the stalks. Now imagine a geologist a biologist and a painter harvesting from the same field. The geologist picks through the rocks and soil gathering data about the land itself. The biologist might collect insects and worms, bits of plants and organic matter. The painter sees the patterns in the landscape and chooses a pallete and a perspective for work of art. They all harvest …
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In the Netherlands, a groupd of kids has challenged a government minister to see who can reduce their power consumption the most: Being 14 is no obstacle to helping the planet, judging by the example of a group of Dutch school kids fired up by an idea as bright as an energy-saving light bulb. The schoolchildren from Almere taking part in The Bet Thanks indirectly to their efforts, vehicles at the Netherlands’ environment ministry will be running on natural gas by the spring of 2007. The teenagers in Almere, a futuristic new town near Amsterdam, had called on the environment …