It’s been a while since I blogged about the West Wing but all the presidential race in the USA has reminded me of why I love the programme.  It’s smart, intelligent and inspiring because it doesn’t go for the lowest common denominator, unlike the American voters who showed in their last pick for President they very much favour the lowest common denominator.

In the season where Bartlet runs for his second term he ends up in a debate with Ritchie, the Bush-like Republican nominee.  Ritchie give a ten word answer to a question, the political silver bullet.  Bartlet’s response should be every voter’s response, “What are the next ten words?”.

Why on earth would you want to pick the most powerful man in the world based on a two minute soundbite with a one minute ‘discussion’?  Isn’t this much more important than that?

Toby once said ‘No-one likes the smartest kid in the class.”  Maybe that’s true but wouldn’t you want the smartest kid in the class to be the one in the most complex job in the word?

I’m home for less than 24 hours between a team meeting in Derbyshire and a training event in Nairn.

It’s funny how ideas come together.  The other night I watched a couple of TED talks.  One was from Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologues fame who spoke passionately about ’safety’ and how people who try to stay safe miss the point of life, to live it.  I also watched Philip Zimbardo talk about how good people turn bad.  A fascinating, if rushed, talk about his work exploring what causes ordinary people to to evil things.

Finally, on Wednesday at my team meeting we spent the morning hearing Martin from Spinnaker Trust’s thoughts on Nehemiah and his rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem and how Nehemiah inspired and enabled people to build walls and gates.

I’m not sure where this thought is going but it seems to me that walls work two ways.  They keep people out and they keep people in.  I’m not sure either of those is a good thing but gates also seem to serve similar purposes, to let people pass between in and out.

I was struck by Ensler’s talk, particularly her story of a brave African woman who was brave enough to stand up against genital mutilation in her culture.  It seems that if she had sought safety then nothing would have changed.

I was struck by Zimbardo’s thoughts on how people do what their environment tells them to do.  It’s not necessarily about being told to but being in a culture which makes it ok or infers that you should act in a certain way without checks or balances.

I was struck by how Nehemiah wanted to restore the city but to do that he needed to build walls, to define it and to defend it.

Sometimes it seems that our desire to keep people safe actually puts them more at risk because walls divide and gates, while allowing people through usually have gatekeepers who check that only the right people come and go.  Walls create in and out, them and us, for us and against us.  I like the idea of Nehemiah mobilising the community to restore the city but I’m not sure we will restore our cities by building walls.

Over the weekend at NYA2008 we spoke about the power of social media to bring people together for good.  I wish I’d checked all my RSS feeds because Ypulse have a great article linking to 10 youth activism sites.  All great examples of how the web can be used to organise people and bring them together around an issue.

The paralympic games are astonishing.  The athletes have every reason not to take part in sport.  In most places it’s hard enough for able bodied people to get involved in sport but support and facilities for disabled athletes is so much harder to access.  These men and women are amazing.  Their spirit, determination and sense of fair play is inspirational.  What a shame we don’t get the same blanket coverage on TV.  Why is that?  Do we think people aren’t interested?

Where has the time gone!?!?!  I’ve known about NYA2008 for ages and been working on it for months and I’m still not done!  How come?

I got the programme information today and it looks amazing!  Some really good stuff happening about mental health and the human library sounds fascinating.

My sessions?  Well, Authenticity, Information, Privacy and Participation are our headings for an adventure in Social Media.  Sound interesting?  I hope so.

I’ll be blogging as we go along and posting on the wiki.  If you’re not coming you can follow the back-channel chat (or just backchat) on twitter.  Follow us over the weekend, or say hi!, using NYA2008 in your tweet.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about last night’s thoughts and I think my obsession with this event is about making a difference and seeing the value it has.  If not then it really is an obsession and I need help!

Now, no more of this procrastination.  Back to work!!!

Chris Abani’s amazing, moving and inspiring TED talk, Stories of Humanity.

A long time ago I started to write a book.  By started I mean that I wrote down a couple of chapter titles and a few thoughts.  The title of one of the chapters was “Paralysed By Choice - the paradox of post-modern youth”.  Now I wish I’d written it.  But because I didn’t I can recommend Barry Schwartz brilliant TED talk on the same topic.

Choice fascinates me.  In lots of ways I like choice.  At least I think I do.  I have the choice to spend my evenings doing lots of different things, so why do I spend them watching House or working or nothing much.

I think the church suffers badly from choice overload.  It seems that in places where there is one flavour of church that the church does ok.  People go.  They don’t question if it could be better.  They commit to making the most of it.  Is that our problem?  Too much choice?  And does that choice raise our expectation?  I think it does.  And I’m not sure that’s always a good thing.

Maybe Calvin has it right.  Lower expectations lead to less disappointment.  But it also stops us wondering what might have been.  I loved the cartoon in Schwartz’s talk showing the guy at work thinking about golf, when he’s playing golf thinking about his wife and when he’s making love to his wife he’s thinking about work.

There is something very important about being present.  Being in the moment.  Not thinking about what you could have won (in a Bullseye fashion!).  That doesn’t mean settling.  It means committing.

Is that the price we pay?  More choice = less committment?  I think it might be, and I’m not sure the choice is worth it.

I’ve posted talks by Clay Shirky before.  This one is from TED a while back but seems somehow more relevant now than it might have been a few years ago.

His ideas about collaberation seem to chime with my own thinking about the church as an institution and the problem it faces.  The church is an institution seems based on knowledge and control of that knowledge and access to it.  There is of course nothing wrong with striving to deepen our knowledge but my concern has always been that to set apart a whole class of people as the keepers of that knowledge devalues the insights and discoveries of anyone outside that group.

It seems to me that Shirky is talking about the same thing when he talks about the potential of open source collaboration and free access.  The problems for the church in that prospect are the same as for any institution.  If anyone can contribute and if that contribution is to be valued, or at least proves to be valuable, where does that leave the institution as it no longer has a monopoly on knowledge, insight and understanding.

If the church has set itself up based on that mediation of knowledge and structures itself to maintain that mediated access then Shirky’s vision of open source, open comment, the long tail and grouping knowledge and information through tagging and sharing means big trouble for the institution… but a big future for communities of believers.

Sir Ken Robinson gives a challenging talks on education and creativity to TED.  Go make a cuppa and spend 20min watching.

I don’t get it. 42 days without charge seems like a very very long time.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights states:

Article 3:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Surely to arrest someone you must have an idea that they have done something bad. To have an idea they have done something bad you would need some kind of proof. Why would it take 42 days to gather enough proof to charge someone. Isn’t there an offense of ’suspicion of terrorism’? Do the police stop investigating at charge?

Perhaps that’s what needs changing rather than locking up people who MIGHT be guilty but against whom not enough proof has been gathered.

Innocent until proven guilty is the foundation of democracy. Eroding that foundation is a very dangerous thing to do.

I actually quite like Gordon Brown. His commitment to ending poverty, his work on reforming aid to Africa and his brand of social justice struck a chord with me. What happened to that Gordon?